Piece of Darkness III - Middlegame
by Proud to be Plug
Summary: Cyrus Wright and his friends have met their true enemy - but they have yet to understand him. Now, their path through the shadows grows increasingly uncertain, as primordial threats and human struggles put the future of Olympus in doubt. Failure is quickly becoming the most likely outcome. Third book in the Piece of Darkness saga.
1. Chapter One

**Author's Note: And here we go again.**

**And so here, almost exactly one year to the day since I began publishing Gambit, is the third book in my little series. This would have seen the light of day far sooner, were it not for the fact that it took me so long to write the first draft. A mixture of lethargy and bad time management on my part meant that it took far longer to get that first draft finished than it really ought to have done. Nevertheless, here it is at last, presented to you, my eager though often invisible readers.**

**At this point in the series there are few concessions for those who have not read the previous two books. While you can read this with no prior knowledge of the Piece of Darkness series and presumably still enjoy it, you will clearly not get the full effect unless you have read Rise of the Forgotten, A Knight or a Pawn and Gambit.**

**(Dear God, look at me, building up a back catalogue.)**

**This is the longest story so far, standing at twenty-five chapters. It is also the most action-packed, with a far better drama-to-conversation ratio than anything I have hitherto written. **

**As usual, I'll be putting up one chapter a week.**

**Now, read, enjoy, and do try to review. ;-)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

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><p><span><strong>Piece of Darkness III - Middlegame<strong>

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><p><strong>Chapter One<strong>

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><p><em>"<em>_Now," the Leanansidhe said. "If you are quite finished holding hostage my imagination, pray continue."_

–Jim Butcher, 'Ghost Story'

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><p>Every chess match has a particular structure.<p>

There's the opening moves, usually the most boring stage of the match, as both players do little more than prepare their pieces for the initial forays into the opposing side of the board. Various pieces are introduced and certain positions are taken.

Then, the first gambits are played. Both players find a particular strategic stance and are ready to commit to an attack, so they make moves into each other's territory. The complexity of play increases and the first significant captures are made.

Now, the match comes into its central phase. Many pieces on the board may be trapped in deadlock, and the pressure is building on both players. Any decision made at this stage, even the smallest one, can have a huge effect on not just the next few turns, but the very outcome of the game.

This is what we call the _middlegame_.

"The Celts - or some of them, at least - were a brutal race," my grandfather told me. "Like many of the ancient peoples, they practiced human sacrifice for much of their history."

"'Practiced'?" I interrupted. "How exactly did they 'practice' it? Did they take a few unlucky souls out into a field and say, 'Hold still while we practice killing you'?"

My grandfather laughed, his eyes twinkling a little, the way all grandfathers' eyes should.

"That's a good point," he nodded. "Maybe 'practiced' is the wrong word to use… Or perhaps they just weren't very good at it." He trailed off, his gaze drifting up to the greyish-white sky above us, as though the right word would fall down amidst the snowflakes.

We were sitting in Grandpa's kitchen, looking out onto his snow-covered garden. The weather had changed a few days ago, as though the very air had known that we were nearing Christmastime, and the snow had fallen almost unceasingly since then. I'd arrived at my grandfather's house in Staten Island less than an hour ago, having walked from my home. I'd slipped three times on the way, and only my years of martial arts training had saved me from breaking a bone. Each time my legs had gone out from under me, I'd recalled those lessons on the correct way to fall - or _ukemi_, to use the Japanese term - and landed onto the hard, icy concrete with confidence.

(Although that doesn't mean it had been _comfortable_.)

"At any rate, human sacrifice very much _went on_," Grandpa resumed. "It was carried out by the priests of the Celts—"

"The Druids?"

"That's right." he said, with a nod. "The Druids were the true rulers of Celtic society. Not only were they considered men of infinite wisdom, but they were believed to be capable of astonishing feats of magic."

I nodded, turning away from the window and looking across the table at him.

Grandpa Riordan himself looked like a man of great wisdom. Like his daughter, he possessed a strength of presence which belied his small build and medium height. His face was tanned and worn from years of travel, but when you looked in his eyes you did not see the weariness of age: only the intelligence of experience. We often called him Old Scribe, because of his vast knowledge of tales, legends and myths. Of course, like his own grandfather, his mother, his daughter and his grandson, William Riordan was clear-sighted.

"They were teachers, judges, priests, warmakers, peacemakers, healers…" Grandpa said. "They didn't just get like that overnight, mind you. They had to study for up to twenty years before they became fully-fledged Druids."

"Twenty _years_?" I echoed, aghast. I'd heard of long Ph.D programs, but that was ridiculous.

"It was to give time for their beard to grow out, you see," Grandpa said sagely, the laughter in his blue eyes belying the serious expression on his face.

I shook my head, not buying into his bad joke. I glanced around the kitchen.

It was just like any other kitchen - stove, refrigerator, cupboards, you name it. It was at the back of Grandpa's house, which was a typical house, with four walls, a roof, a front door, a back door (excitement, huh?) and a few windows. It was all terribly ordinary, and didn't quite seem to fit my grandfather, who had spent much of the last thirty years traveling to the most distant corners of whichever countries you can think of.

"Unfortunately, there's no written record of what the Druids were taught," Grandpa said, peering out the window, with a touch of forlornness in his frown. "Any knowledge they had is lost, or so the scholars tell us."

"That's a shame," I murmured.

Many people have boring or dislikable grandparents, but my grandfather was one of the most interesting people I knew. He was originally from Ireland, but he'd come to America in the 1960's, where he'd met my grandmother, Michelle. The two of them had settled down and had one child - my mother, Louise.

Sounds like a pretty typical story, right? But things changed once Grandpa got into his late forties. He'd worked in the New York Police Department for twenty years, but when he wrote a thriller based on a particularly bizarre encounter he'd had with a Mafia boss from Chicago, Grandpa's fortunes changed entirely. The novel - entitled _Me and Marcone_ - took off, and when he'd sold the film rights to it, he'd made enough money to retire.

Whenever I tell people this story, they nod and say, okay, that was it, right?

Not exactly. Grandpa had always had a big appetite for adventure, and less than a month after retiring, he'd started traveling. His life's dream had been to see as many corners of the world as possible, and he'd gotten the chance to fulfil that. He and my grandmother had gone everywhere, going to all manner of places, in every continent, at any time. There was only two rules - they never went anywhere obvious; and if at all possible, they travelled on foot.

This naturally led to a wide range of escapades and adventures. Indeed, it led to enough stories that Grandpa had material for a second novel, which provided further funds for the endless traveling. He only took a real break when my grandmother died, four years ago.

As I sat there in his kitchen, though, I wondered if there was some things Grandpa had never told us. He never spoke about his clear sight, but I had a suspicion that, all the while, he hadn't just been traveling - he'd been searching for the reason why he could see things that were hidden to others.

Whether this theory was correct, and whether he'd ever learned the truth, I had no idea. I never asked him. As far as I was concerned, he was completely separate from the crazy world of the gods, and things were staying that way.

"Of course, none of the scholars actually _believe_ that the Druids were truly wizards," Grandpa said, looking back at me. He drummed his fingers against the side of his empty mug slowly. "They say they were just priests who tricked their semi-savage followers."

"Yeah," I nodded, draining the last drop of hot chocolate from my own mug. "But? I sense a but in there, Grandpa."

"Well, maybe I'm just a crazy old man," he said, shrugging. "But I sometimes think that there's more to those legends than just religious imagination. I'm not saying that they're all _true_, exactly, but…"

I watched him carefully. His brown, lined brow crinkled as he sought the next words.

"Look at it this way," he went on, looking at me steadily. "The Celts were noted specifically for their level of development. They weren't exactly the Enlightenment, but they were certainly far more advanced than your average bone-hefting savage. And yet this idea that the Druids were wizards and power-wielders seems like something that _only_ a community of savages would believe."

My eyes widened as I realised what he meant. "So you think…"

"I don't know exactly what I think," Grandpa amended, smiling in his enigmatic way. "But I suspect that some of those old stories about the Druids have a grain of truth in them, somewhere."

I nodded slowly, pondering this. I was about to reply, when my phone, which lay on the table in front of me, rang suddenly. And loudly.

We both jumped.

"Christ," Grandpa chuckled, running a hand through his hair. "I hardly even twitched during that trek through the rain-forests of Colombia, but an overly loud ringtone makes me jump like a rabbit."

I smiled, and picked up the phone.

That smile died and was resurrected as a morbid grimace when I saw the caller ID.

_CHB_.

I swallowed slowly, watching the phone continue to ring, buzzing and blaring, for a long moment.

Then I declined the call, and stuffed the phone in my pocket.

"It can wait," I muttered in explanation to Grandpa, who looked a little curious. He nodded, and went back to staring at the falling snow. A brisk whirlwind of thoughts swept into my mind, and I sat in silence as I tried to beat down a gale of anger and unease.

"CHB" was, of course, Camp Half-Blood.

A year ago, I would've been more than eager to take the call, but after my friend Nico di Angelo had been taken by the terrible primordial being, Tartarus, my feelings towards that world of myth and monsters had changed quite a bit.

When Alice and I had gotten back to camp after our quest to the Edge of the West, far too many people seemed not to realise what we'd lost. Some did, of course - Chiron, Percy, Annabeth, a few others. But so many just didn't care. I'd known that Nico had never been popular at camp, but I hadn't realised how much antipathy there was towards the son of Hades. It wasn't that the campers hated him personally: they simply didn't _care_ about him. I tried to see things from their point of view, tried to understand that Nico scared most of them, that their reactions were natural.

But I've always been a bad liar - I can't even convince myself.

But I could have dealt with that. Sure, most of them were uninterested in the loss of one of the most important demigods alive, but I could've gotten over that.

The _other_ thing that had happened in the Underworld was that Hades, Lord of the Dead, had told me there was an old prophecy which foretold a time of great destruction for Olympus. This prophecy, he explained, said that one person would have the power to "hold back the shadows" when they rose to destroy the West.

Then Hades had said that many of the gods believed that said time of destruction was near, and that I was the one destined to save us all.

Initially I'd refused to believe this, thinking it was a load of mythological mumbo-jumbo. Eventually, though, my curiosity had driven me to put the pieces together. This mysterious prophecy could only be, I realised, the _prontos profiteia_ that Jake Wilson had told me about. And if the saviour foretold by it was going to "hold back the shadows", that could only mean the terrible threat to the West would be some sort of being with dominion over shadows and darkness.

Guess what powers Tartarus - who Hades called the gods' greatest enemy - had shown when we'd encountered him at the Edge of the West.

This all made sense, certainly, but then it didn't affect me, surely? Just because we were about to have an apocalypse of apocalypses, it didn't mean _I_ was the schmuck who was going to save the day. Someone else was bound to be sufficiently qualified to deal with that mess. Right?

Wrong.

A little conversation I'd had with Amichanos, spirit of self-knowledge, gave me evidence to the contrary. As it turned out, I had pure sight, which meant that I could see through absolutely any illusion you can think of.

(Oh, and apparently I was the first person to have the gift of pure sight since Olympus had come to America.)

I tried all manner of arguments to work around this, but the bare facts couldn't be changed. Whatever I thought about it, the idea that I was the one who could stop Tartarus was entirely plausible. A bit _too_ plausible, if you know what I mean.

Okay, Cyrus, you say, but what the hell does all this have to do with camp?

Everything. When I got back to Camp Half-Blood and asked Chiron about what Hades had told me, the centaur refused to explain anything to me.

He was very polite about it, of course, telling me that he was forbidden by the gods to speak about the prophecy. Still, a refusal is a refusal. Maybe I was being immature, but I took great offence at this. Hades _himself_ had told me of the prophecy - surely that was enough of a mandate for Chiron to tell me everything? What would it take for me to be told the full truth - did Zeus himself have to descend from Olympus and hand me a golden scroll?

So, the combination of these two issues meant that my feelings towards camp had greatly cooled. I still liked individual demigods, but the world of Greek myth was very definitely in my bad books. It was Christmastime now, five months since that trip to the Underworld, but my anger was still present - enough that I was hanging up on camp.

"I wonder, how many times," Grandpa said suddenly, his eyes flickering towards me and away again, "have I had to do something that I absolutely _hated_? Probably more than anyone could count. I used to fight it, but one day I realised that life is not really about what you _want_ to do - it's usually about what you _need_ to do. Sometimes those two things are the same but… not often."

I didn't reply. I couldn't. Grandpa had, probably without realising it, cut right to the core of my issues. Maybe I did feel angry towards camp, towards the world of the gods, but was it right to let that affect my judgement? If I insisted on being standoffish with Chiron just because I had a grievance, did that make me any nobler than Jake Wilson himself?

The phone rang again.

The direction of the wind in my emotional storm changed direction, and a sudden pang of guilt struck me. What, I thought uneasily, if something awful was happening, and I was the only one who could help? Someone's _life_ could depend on whether or not I was able to swallow my goddamn pride.

On the third ring, I pushed my chair back and stood up, murmuring, "Excuse me." As I turned away from the table, I thought I saw a small smile curl across my grandfather's face.

I left the kitchen and went into the hall, where I took the call.

"Hi," I said, leaning against the wall.

"Cyrus," Chiron's voice said immediately, sounding tight with anxiety. "How are you?"

"Uh," I said slowly, slightly surprised by the small talk. "I'm fine…"

"Nothing strange is happening where you are?"

"Um, no," I said. "Everything's fine here. No monsters or anything. Should there be… something?"

I heard an exhalation, one that sounded like a sigh of relief. After a brief pause, Chiron said, in a more relaxed tone than before, "Not necessarily, no. Ah. Do you think you could get to the Empire State Building?"

I blinked. I'd been anticipating a summons to camp, so this was puzzling. "The Empire State Building… when? Why?"

"As soon as you can," Chiron replied. "Something rather, ah, unusual is happening."

"What do you mean?"

"Well…" Chiron paused, and there was a note of caution to it, as though he was trying to approach an awkward topic. "I don't wish to alarm you, but there's an army of ghosts moving across New York, heading towards the Empire State Building."

"Oh," I said slowly, finding it hard to process what I was hearing. "Um."

"Yes," the centaur went on, in an almost apologetic tone. "The strange thing is that they don't seem to be doing anything or trying to kill anyone. They're simply marching through the city. Intelligence reports suggest that they're too weak to be of any danger to anyone, but we're sending a few people to guard the entrance to Olympus, just in case."

"Okay," I replied, trying to take in the idea of a large but apparently unthreatening army of ghosts winding its way through the streets of New York. No wonder Chiron sounded so baffled. "Why do you need me?"

"They don't seem to be a threat, but there's always the chance that something is being veiled by illusions. I think you'll be able to see the situation more clearly ."

My stomach lurched a little. Chiron always avoided acknowledging that my sight was something useful. He saw that it was a sensitive subject for me, and so he always steered around it. Perhaps he was only trying to make me feel valued, but the lack of concealment showed that the situation could be more serious than he was letting on.

"Okay," I said. "I'll be there in about an hour."

"Great. Thank you," he replied, sounding relieved. "Good luck."

He hung up.

I stood there for a moment, contemplating things in the cool, calm quiet of the dark hall. Then I put my phone away and walked back into the kitchen, to tell Grandpa that I had to go.

"Something's sort of come up," I said, with an apologetic tone that belied the feeling of excitement stirring in my stomach. "I have to go, unfortunately."

"Ah, that's a shame," Grandpa replied easily, pushing back his chair without getting up. "I hope everything's okay?"

I thought of the army of ghosts that was apparently streaming across the city at that very moment. I wondered if the mortals could see them, and if Olympus itself was about to be attacked.

"Yeah," I nodded steadily. "Everything's fine."

"Alright," he said, rubbing his chin with a regretful air. "Mind yourself."

"I will."

I turned to leave the kitchen, and was about to close the door behind me, when my grandfather spoke again.

"Oh, and Cyrus," he said. I looked back at him. His eyes were twinkling again, but now there was a hint of mischief in them. Grandpa smiled, and said, "Tell Chiron I said hello."


	2. Chapter Two

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

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><p><span><strong>Piece of Darkness III - Middlegame<strong>

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><p><strong>Chapter Two<strong>

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><p><em>The cafe windows wrapped all the way around the observation floor, which gave us a beautiful panoramic view of the skeletal army that had come to kill us.<em>

—Rick Riordan, 'Percy Jackson and the Titan's Curse'

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><p>I took the ferry from Staten Island to Manhattan, and got the subway to Herald Square. When I came onto ground level, I glanced up the street.<p>

The army of ghosts was less than four blocks away, coming down Sixth Avenue.

I'd seen spirits before - there'd been one or two or a few billion down in the Underworld - but this was still a pretty disturbing sight. It was one thing to see ghosts in, you know, the Land of the _Dead_, but seeing them here in the middle of the city, _my_ city, was a lot stranger. The background of Christmas decorations and happy shoppers made it seem as though Halloween had come late.

They walked in tight squares, like an army. Each square was made up of around sixty-four spirits - eight rows of eight - and the entire army was made up of ten of these squadrons. The whole convoy proceeded down the road, walking through cars and people. The ghosts paid no attention to anything around them, and marched with an air of forbidding implacability. It reminded me of a video I'd seen of Nazi military parades.

I walked up the street slowly, not taking my eyes off the spectral horde. I paused at the junction between West 34th Street and 6th Avenue. The ghosts were moving very, very slowly, so I figured it'd take some time till they reached the Empire State Building. I took the time to examine them fully.

Nico had once told me that many ghosts could look just like living people, but these guys were all classic grey, incorporeal spirits. They were wispy and hard to see clearly. Often, they blended in with the greying snow on the ground, so that they looked like nothing more than a momentary image forming in freezing vapour. As clouds passed over the sun, it became easier to see them, but when the light brightened, they seemed to fade.

It was even more difficult to make out individual ghosts. The indistinctness of their faces made their heads look like nothing more than overlarge plumes of exhaust. As I concentrated, though, the spirits near the front came into sharper focus. Many of them wore the trappings of war, both modern and ancient. Others looked much the same as the living people around them.

None of said living people seemed to notice the invasion of grey spectres. Once or twice a child stopped and stared curiously in the general direction of the ghosts, but a parent would hurriedly usher them on, usually irritated at the child's supposed irrationality. On one occasion, a taxi driver stuck his head out his cab window and looked around in bewildered annoyance when the army passed through his vehicle, but he didn't seem to actually _see_ anything.

There was nothing scary or intimidating about the ghosts, really. They just looked like lost memories.

I was tempted to use my sight to examine these silent, emotionless souls more thoroughly, but I knew I had to get to the Empire State Building before them. With a slight sense of disappointment, I turned away, heading down West 34th.

(It struck me, as I hurried on, that I was starting to actually _enjoy_ using my sight. Before, I avoided it like the plague, but now I was beginning to relish the insights it gave me. I valued the opportunity it provided to learn things - and maybe deep down, I liked the importance it granted me.)

I glanced around at the bustling, Christmas-obsessed mortals, and wondered just how bad everything was about to go. I didn't know what those ghosts were doing here, but it sure didn't seem likely that they were carol singers.

I turned right onto Fifth Avenue, and frowned. It was quiet here - _too_ quiet. New York streets aren't exactly places that you expect to be empty, with not a single living soul to be seen. I looked behind me - all the other streets I could see were as busy as usual, but not a soul was even glancing in the direction of Fifth. I yelled, "Hey!" but no-one looked my way. I started jumping up and down, shouting obscenities at passers-by, but no-one so much as twitched towards Fifth Avenue.

I swallowed nervously, dug my hand into the inside pocket of my coat towards my knife, and strode up the street. Things were getting more and more bizarre.

(Then again, once a legion of ghosts is strolling across a city, the bizarre benchmark for the day has been set pretty high.)

My sense of unease grew as I saw that a lone figure was standing outside the doors of the Empire State Building - a figure holding a bright bronze sword. I tensed automatically, getting ready to draw my dagger out from the inside pocket.

As I drew nearer, though, the figure turned towards me, and I recognised the emerald green aura of Olivia Hartnell, daughter of Hecate.

"Cyrus!" she called to me, waving as I came towards her.

"Hi," I said, as I finally reached her. We exchanged a mitten-clad handshake. It was the first time I'd seen Olivia since the summer. She looked a little older already, and her aura had grown in intensity, becoming brighter and more imposing.

"Chiron sent you, right?" the daughter of Hecate asked me, her green eyes examining me intently.

"Yeah," I nodded. I glanced over my shoulder at the top of the street - there was still not a soul turning onto Fifth, and no sign of the ghosts. I turned back to Olivia, who was gazing down the road pensively.

"I guess you're wondering why it's so quiet around here," she said, without looking at me.

"Yeah…"

"That was me," Olivia explained, finally meeting my gaze. "We decided it was better to keep the mortals out of the area, in case this develops into a big battle, but because this is kind of the middle of New York, it's impossible to keep them more than a street away. So I put up some illusions and Mist roadblocks. It'll be enough to keep everyone away for a while, but it'll start to break down after a couple of hours."

I glanced down at the end of the street, puzzled. "I didn't see any roadblocks…"

"Well, _you_ wouldn't, naturally," she said, checking her watch. "The others should be here soon."

I looked at the daughter of Hecate for a brief moment. She was a couple of years older than me, but she was only an inch or two taller. I'd gotten to know her a little after working with her on a capture-the-flag game against the Hunters. Olivia had a penchant for being a little cryptic, a little standoffish, but then I'm not exactly Mr. Friendly either. Perhaps that's why we got on.

I looked around at the shops and restaurants. What I hadn't noticed before - busy as I'd been with being illogically paranoid - was that every one of them was shut and empty, again with not a soul to be seen.

"Um," I said articulately. "How did you manage to clear the street? I doubt you just told everyone there's a spectral invasion on the way and politely asked them to leave."

I looked back at Olivia, who smiled a little. She stuck her sword in the ground, point-first, and clapped her hands. A brief ripple shook through her aura, and a band of green power expanded out from her hands in a thin circle, before fading out of sight.

I frowned. Suddenly, I felt an overwhelming sense that I had to do something else, something important. I had to get back to my grandfather's, that was it, he was expecting me…

I was already starting to turn to go, when Olivia rubbed her hands together, as though she was dusting them off. As suddenly and as quietly as it had come, the illusion melted away.

"Wow," I said, turning back to her and rubbing my head. "That's pretty powerful."

"I thought so," Olivia nodded. "We did it on the whole street. There's a lot of people wandering around New York right now wondering where they need to go, I'm afraid."

"But how did you manage to do that on such a big scale?" I said, frowning. "That can't be easy."

"Jane brought the whole Hecate cabin here," she explained, resting one hand on her sword's pommel. "It took ten of us, but working together we had enough strength to spread the spell across the whole street. We're near Christmas, and that made things easier. Everyone always has somewhere to be, this time of year."

I whistled slowly. "That's pretty cool." I glanced around again. It was really strange seeing a New York street so quiet. With the snow glistening underfoot, it was even a little peaceful.

"Where's your cabin now?" I asked.

"Um," Olivia said, looking away, clearly trying not to laugh. "Most of them collapsed, I'm afraid. They're not really used to heavy-duty magic like that. We had to send them back to camp."

That didn't really impress me. "Oh, great," I said flatly, withdrawing my dagger from my pocket and inspecting it. "That's fine. I'm absolutely sure that we won't need more enchantments to be cast or anything."

Olivia opened her mouth to reply, when a ripple of movement behind her caught my eye. I reacted instinctively, shifting my grip on my dagger. She turned, snatching up her sword and stepping towards the patch of shadows a few feet away from us, which was now writhing and twisting.

Then, the darkness resolved itself into the forms of Jane Welles and Kevin Andrews.

"Oh, hi, Cyrus," Jane said, with equanimity, as though we were just meeting at the mall. She stepped towards us, shaking her head a little, as though tossing off tiredness or disorientation. Kevin, however, crouched down on his hunkers, clutching his head tenderly. He really wasn't a fan of shadow-travel.

"Hi, Jane." I replied, smiling. Jane gave Olivia a professional nod, before giving me a quick hug.

"How are you doing, then, Seer?" she said with a smile, as she stepped back. "Looking forwards to fighting ghosts?"

I nodded, and looked at her for a moment. It was good to see her again, because we hadn't talked much since the end of the summer. As I met her dark eyes, though, something seemed a little different, a little off. You always know when your friend is different. I frowned automatically, examining her. There was something about the daughter of Nyx that had changed - not in a "your-head's-fallen-off" way, but something subtle that I couldn't quite place.

"What's wrong?" Jane asked, frowning in reply to my puzzled look.

"Cyrus is just wondering why the hell you got assigned to a field mission," Kevin said drily, as he finally straightened up. He nodded to me. "Hey, man."

"Hi, Kevin," I grinned. The son of Ares didn't show it often, but he had a wit that was sharper than his sword.

Jane just rolled her eyes, and stepped onto the road to look down at the end of the street. The ghosts sure were taking their time - there was still no sign of them. Maybe they'd got stuck at the zebra crossing. I tried not to laugh at the mental image of the entire legion of spectres patiently waiting for a group of schoolchildren to make their way across the road.

(Hey, just because you're an invisible invading force doesn't mean you shouldn't follow traffic laws.)

Kevin smiled at Olivia - who was now fiddling with a small round stone that hung from her neck by a thin bronze chain - and exchanged manly handclasps with me.

"Is anyone else coming?" I asked him quietly. He was wearing his usual light armour, with his long sword hanging from his belt.

"Unfortunately, no," he answered, scratching his behatted head with an irritated air. "Jane is saving her energy, in case this turns into a confrontation, so we couldn't shadow-travel any more out. Most of the Hecate cabin is out for the count, so we can't use their quanta transmission thingy."

"Their what?" I said blankly.

"I'll tell you later," Kevin said, waving away the question. "Or rather, Olivia will tell you later. Anyway, there's no other way to get more people here in time, unless we start sending people on pegasi, but Chiron doesn't think that's necessary."

"He doesn't?" I said incredulously. "What part of 'army of ghosts marching on Olympus' does not suggest the need for reinforcements?"

"The ghosts are weak," Jane broke in. I turned to look at her - she'd walked up to the top of the street and back again, and was now standing in the middle of the road with her hands on her hips. "Chiron sent me to check them out as soon as we heard the report about them appearing. They have very little power. It won't take much to knock them back into the Underworld."

"Where did they come from?" I asked, glancing between her and Kevin.

"One of my brothers was messing around with a scrying bowl," Olivia answered. She stepped into the road, standing between Jane and me. "He was searching for any magical activity in the New York City area, and the bowl showed him Central Park. Somehow, the spirits had gotten out via the Underworld entrance that's there—"

I nodded. Nico had told me about Orpheus' Gate, the back door to the Land of the Dead, which he and Percy had once used for a mission during the Titan War.

"—and they massed at the gates of the park, before moving out across Manhattan," Olivia finished. "We don't know how they got out, but—"

"Oh, come on, Olivia," Jane said scornfully. "We all know how they got out. Tartarus did it."

Perhaps it was only my morbid imagination, but the temperature of the air around us seemed to burrow a few degrees further down the subzero rabbit hole.

"Jane…" Olivia said warily, glancing up the street quickly.

"What?" she said shortly, before shaking her head. "Oh yeah, I know, we're not supposed to say his name. But what does it matter now, really? We all know he's rising, saying his name can't really make any—"

"Look," Kevin said suddenly. His voice, though quiet, carried that weight of authority that all good commanders have, and we turned, as one, to look at him. His hand was raised, with one finger pointing to the top of the street.

The army of escapee spirits had, in the last few seconds, reached the top of Fifth Avenue. The leading squadron in the procession was just starting to drift down the road. They moved with the same slow, unhurried drift, every spirit seemingly unaware of the world around them.

Kevin moved out into the centre of the road, not taking his eyes off the spirits. He stood his hands loose at his sides, watching them for a few moments. If they'd been moving at a normal walking pace, they would have reached us in a couple of minutes, but their glacially slow tread gave us plenty of time to prepare.

Kevin turned back around to face us. We looked at him rather blankly. My mental abilities don't work so great in the field, Jane was too irritated to come up with any strategic ideas, and Olivia had gone back to thumbing her stone, so the son of Ares naturally took charge.

"Spread out, everyone," he instructed, making quick, direct gestures. "Each of the groups is eight rows by eight columns, and there's four of us, so each of you take two rows at a time. Olivia, Jane, use your powers as efficiently as possible. I don't need you collapsing halfway through this. Cyrus, use your sight to look out for any illusions, and don't waste time in one-on-one fights - vaporise as many ghosts as fast as you can. If they're as weak as they seem, it shouldn't take much."

"What about you?" I asked.

Kevin drew his sword, the razor-shape blade singing loudly as it emerged from its sheath. "I'll take point."

We followed his orders, taking up our positions in the road. I took the left flank, with Jane on my right. On her right stood Kevin, a few steps in front of the rest of us, ready to put a big dent in the approaching spectral ranks. Olivia took up the far right flank, her sword stuck into the ground between her feet again, as she tapped her stone with a frustrated air.

"I got it!" she said suddenly, holding it up.

A faint humming sound filled the air, as three bright green symbols lit up on the surface of the stone, casting a dull emerald glow on Olivia's hands.

"What's that?" Kevin asked, glancing over his shoulder at her for a second.

"It's an energy stone," she replied, turning it over and over in her hands with a satisfied air. At some point, she'd taken it off the chain. "It has a ton of stored power in it. My mother gave me a few of them. I can use it to nuke the ghosts without drawing on my own reserves."

"Great," Jane said, eyeing her with a slight air of envy. "Can I have one?"

Olivia laughed. "You can, but it would be useless to you. Only someone who can wield magic could use this."

Jane opened her mouth to say something else, but Kevin said, once more with authority, "Shhh."

We all remembered what we were meant to be doing, and looked around.

The ghosts were nearly upon us.

I glared at them, for the first time feeling genuinely unnerved. The spirits still paid no attention to us or anything else, not even glancing in our direction. They just drifted forwards, their eyes downcast. I wasn't sure if they were just really stupid or really sure that they were going to go right through us. One way or another, their ghostly apathy was seriously spooky. It would have been _less_ creepy if they'd been rushing towards us screaming.

The air suddenly seemed a whole lot colder, even with the protection of my duffel coat.

Jane drew her sword. I glanced at it out of the corner of my eye, and frowned.

"Since when do you have a Stygian sword?" I whispered.

"Since my last trip to the Underworld," she whispered back, her eyes not moving from the oncoming army. "Long story."

_Trip to the Underworld?_

"Cyrus," Kevin said steadily, holding his sword in front of him with two hands. "Use your sight."

The leading ghosts were only a few feet away now. I took a deep breath, readying myself. I knew that ghosts were nothing more than fragments - sometimes mere memories - of souls, that my sight wouldn't show me anything that could scare me, but I still felt the need to prepare myself. I brought myself fully into the moment, cleared away any racing thoughts, centring my mental gravity so that I would be less easily shocked.

Only then did I reach for my pure sight.

I concentrated on the spirits, and my sight slowly ebbed into focus. The auras of my friends around me grew brighter and more imposing, while the dim strands of energy channels in the air around us shimmered into the visible realm. I ignored all that.

The ghosts' appearance began to sharpen, becoming clearer,. They looked more solid, now, than they had when seen with my regular sight. Their faces took on more defined shapes, but I tried not to look any of them in the eye.

Then, I noticed something: in every single spirit, there was a black, gossamer-thin thread snaking down from where their heart would be, through their chest, torso and down their leg, ultimately disappearing into the ground. I frowned, concentrating more intently on that odd little strand of darkness. As I did so, I felt a familiar shiver of dark power brush past my mind.

"Kevin," I said quietly, "cut one of them in half, through the chest."

Kevin moved without a word, taking one step forward and slicing his sword through the upper body of the ghost closest to him. The thread of darkness shattered on contacting his blade, and the spirit - a man clad in heavy, Greek ceremonial armour - exploded in a cloud of grey, ghostly air. In a moment, the ghost had dissolved into nothing.

The other ghosts actually paused at this, their heads tilting upwards a little. They were still for a moment, seeming to survey us, or at least acknowledge our presence.

"What was that?" Olivia asked, her eyes flicking between me and the ghosts.

"There's a link," I said quickly, trying to get the explanation out before the ghosts started to move again. "Each ghost is connected to Tar— to the depths of the pit. They're connected to him by a little strand of shadow, and that's sustaining them, keeping them in one piece. If we severe that, we take away their energy supply, and they just break up."

"Great," Kevin said, raising his sword again, and suddenly sounding quite cheerful. "What are we waiting for?"

The ghosts moved again, a little quicker than before, and this time, we met them halfway.


	3. Chapter Three

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

><p><span><strong>Piece of Darkness III - Middlegame<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Three<strong>

* * *

><p><em>The Doctor: We're being attacked by statues in a crashed ship. There isn't a <em>manual_ for this._

–Doctor Who, 'Flesh and Stone'

* * *

><p>Kevin took the lead, shearing through spirit after spirit, creating so many swirling clouds of ghost particles that he seemed to be shrouded in some sort of tiny hurricane. Jane moved more slowly, mainly using her sword but supporting her attack with waves of shadow, which cut through couples of ghosts at a time. Olivia used only her sword, conserving her powers, not that she needed them - her bronze blade mowed through spectres with lethal efficiency. I was the slowest of us all, stabbing at each ghost's chest individually, but I had the advantage of seeing exactly where the wire of darkness was.<p>

The spirits, for their part, didn't seem to know what was going on - nor, indeed, did they seem to be able to make any physical impact on us. Row after row of them just floated into our blades without resistance, like obliging clumps of mist. It was only as we neared the end of the first squadron that the spirits started to cotton on. One of them moved to grab my wrist, and a sudden icy sensation shot up my arm. I slashed wildly, cutting through the ghost's arm and then its chest. The iciness was gone by the time the spirit had dissipated, but my wrist still tingled a little.

And then, we reached the end of the first group. The air was filled with grey mist, still slowly fading away, and the next cohort of ghosts paused, a couple of feet away, regarding us now with open wariness.

"Well," Jane said, brushing off her jacket with her free hand, "this seems pretty easy. Tart— the son of Chaos must have sent his lightweight mooks."

"Yeah," I nodded, "but don't speak too—"

She spoke too soon.

I froze.

Something was happening to the ghosts.

That wire of darkness, so thin before, was now starting to thicken. It was darkening and growing, expanding into the body of each spirit. As it did so, it sent out pulses of shadow, ripples of power that flowed through each ghost and turned its grey form a little darker.

"Cyrus…" I heard Jane say nervously. I shook my head, casting off my sight with a sense of uneasy urgency, as though that would stop what I was seeing.

"The ghosts," I said, barely aware of how shaky my voice sounded. "They're changing, something's happening, Tarta— the shadows are strengthening them."

A frightened silence fell over the four of us as we stared at the spectres. They really did look like spectres now - even without pure sight, I could see them darkening, growing solider, coming more into the physical realm. That pale, ghostly grey quickly turned dark silver, then almost black. The sheer physical presence of the army intensified greatly.

They were more than just escapee souls now. They were soldiers of darkness.

I glanced at my friends. Olivia had gone pale, her sword half-lowered and her posture limp. Jane's face was tense, hiding her fear with anger. The tip of Kevin's sword had dropped down a few inches, his shoulders slumped just a little, but enough to show his unease.

The son of Ares looked over his shoulder at me, his eyes wide with alarm.

"What's happening?" he murmured.

"It's what Cyrus said," Jane answered for me, her voice tight. "Tartarus is giving these stupid bits of mist more power. They're going to be a hell of a lot harder to kill."

Kevin looked back at said stupid bits of mist. Their transformation was complete now. Despite their increase in power, the ghosts' features were even less defined than before - they looked like nothing more than a mass of statues poorly hewn from black marble. I looked over their heads - the rest of the army was similarly transformed, all nine remaining units of it. Calculations ran in my head - each unit had sixty-four spirits, nine times sixty-four was five hundred and seventy-six.

Oh dear.

"But they can't kill us, right?" Olivia said distantly. "They can't be _that_ strong."

"I don't know," Jane said, raising both hands - her sword in one, a fistful of shadow in the other. "But we're about to find out."

Without a sound, the horde of spectres abruptly swarmed towards us.

The power boost from the pit had made them a hell of a lot faster. They moved about five times quicker than before, almost faster than us. They nearly knocked us back and out of our formation, but Kevin kept us in line.

"Keep your positions!" he shouted, dodging a zombie-esque grab from a particularly burly ghost. "We can't let them get past us to Olympus. We have to stand our ground!"

Easier said than done. The spirits were much more aggressive now, reaching for us with their way stronger hands. The very first one I faced wrapped icy fingers around my forearm, and started to squeeze, as though planning to snap my arm in two. Training kicked in, and I jerked my arm down, up, and to the right, forcing the grip apart, before lunging in with my dagger. The spectres may have become a lot more offensive, but they had little to defend themselves with. This one fractured into a thousand pieces of darkness, before winking out entirely.

Then another one reared up and tried to enfold me in its ghostly embrace/chokehold.

I felt like I was trapped in some sort of macabre training exercise. The ghosts just kept coming and coming, and we fought and fought, desperately trying to keep them at bay. Kevin was like a hurricane, slicing, hacking and slashing any ghost that came within a foot of him. Jane started using her powers more heavily. Every now and then, she stomped her foot, making a wave of shadows explode out from her aura and slam into the spectres, either destroying them or toppling them over. Olivia was using her magic stone, taking out lines of spirits at once with arcing beams of sharply bright green light.

The spirits weren't as hard to kill as I'd feared, but every wave seemed to be a little tougher, a little more aggressive. They poured towards us unceasingly, the only pause occurring when we reached the end of a squadron. Little harm was done to us, but after the fifth or sixth cohort was dispatched, fatigue really started to kick in for all of us. The auras of my friends began to wane as their energy drained away. Tiredness started to slow me down, making my attacks less accurate and my defence a lot shakier. Several spirits nearly downed me, and only Jane's waves of darkness kept them back.

I began to pray for some kind of intervention, some kind of cavalry over the hill. Maybe people from camp would arrive, or maybe a god would just casually walk out of the Empire State Building. No rescue was forthcoming, however, but somehow we all found the strength to keep going, until finally, after what felt like a century of slashing through ghosts, the attack just stopped.

The air was foggy with the mist of dissipating spectres, and the very last unit of spirits was standing still, several yards away. All their fellow soldiers were gone, torn to shreds by our little quartet of ghostbusters, and now only sixty-four of them remained. They stood stiller than statues, their formless faces considering us without any sign of sentience.

"We're almost there," Kevin said, looking around at us with an exhausted smile. "Just one more gang of goons to deal with. Easy, right?"

"Sure," I nodded shakily. "I can't wait."

"Absolutely," Jane replied, crouching down on her hunkers in an attempt to rest.

There was a pause, and then Olivia said, in an uncertain tone, "I wouldn't be so sure about that…"

We all glanced at her, then followed her gaze.

Most of that ghost-mist had evaporated, presumably lost into the atmosphere, banishing the spectres forever. Those spectres were gone completely.

But a lot of those particles hadn't gone anywhere.

The remaining mist was coiling in the air, gathering itself into a single, pulsating mass. It twisted, over and over, as all the ghost particles that had not yet dissipated clumped together into one giant cloud.

"Oh dear," Jane said slowly, hollowly.

We watched, transfixed, as the cloud slowly floated down towards the last spectres. With a sort of morbid finality, the mist shrouded around the spirits, obscuring them from sight for a long moment. Then, the swirling cloud simply soaked into the remaining ghostly soldiers.

The spectres solidified even more as they absorbed the particles of their brethren. All the remains of the ghosts we'd vaporised were now working to strengthen the last cohort of the army, making them obviously stronger than us. By the time the last whispers of mist were integrated, the spectres looked as solid as living humans.

"This is awesome," I said, my mouth dry."Maybe we could just recruit these guys?"

"Hold steady," Kevin said, working hard to keep his voice calm. "Don't back off. Be ready for the—"

The newly-empowered spectres shot towards us, moving like bullets. The leading ghosts slammed into Kevin, who whirled rapidly, taking down a good ten of them with broad slashes of his sword, but they weren't trying to fight him. Tactics had changed - the spectres were no longer trying to get through us, they were bulldozing their way _past_ us.

I stabbed and hacked, running on adrenaline, but I only managed to hit a couple, because they were so fast. I was shoved to one side by a particularly burly spectre, and the rest surged past me, heading straight for the doors of the Empire State Building. Jane caught a few of them with her sword, but they were too strong, too quick. She was pushed, then tripped, and she sprawled on the ground, groaning in pain.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of Olivia turning and sprinting towards the doors. She raced the spectres, casting out beams of power from her stone to slow them down. She barely made it there first, sliding across the snowy pavement, a few metres in the lead. The daughter of Hecate slammed her glowing hand onto the doors and yelled, "_Withstand_."

A blue sheen of power spread out from her hand, shrouding the doors fully, and Olivia threw herself to one side. Spectres crashed right into the doors, and there was an explosion of light so bright, we all looked away or covered our eyes. Mist, smoke and yellowish dust billowed into the air for a moment, blocking most of the spectres from view. After a few seconds, the air cleared, and we saw that the number of monster-ghosts had been at least halved.

Whatever spell Olivia had cast worked extremely well - a few more of the especially dumb spirits dashed at the doors, but as soon as they touched that glowing blue sheen, they exploded in a flash of light and fog. Finally, the remaining spectres stopped, congregating in a tight unit around the doors. Several of them turned to look at Olivia, who was slumped against the wall, her head down, and began moving toward her.

A chill went through me.

"Hey!" I yelled, finally moving again, running towards the rear of the group. Kevin and Jane were behind me, both crying out insults in the vague hope of distracting the spirits approaching Olivia, but they ignored us. Moving with implacable speed, they seized Olivia and flung her at the doors.

As soon as the daughter of Hecate's aura touched the doors, the protective blue sheen rippled, and then shattered, disappearing in the blink of an eye. Her body ploughed into the doors, throwing them open. Olivia fell to the floor inside the lobby, unconscious now, and her magic stone spun off into the building.

"_No_!" Jane cried out angrily. The spectres were already starting to stream inside, but they weren't quite beyond her reach. Her aura pulsing more intensely with rage than I'd ever seen before, Jane plunged her sword into the ground.

A wave of shadows, surely more powerful than any she'd ever summoned before, swept across the ground and wrapped around ten of the rearmost spectres, encasing them in merciless darkness. Jane twisted her sword out of the ground, and the shadows tore all ten ghosts to pieces.

The daughter of Nyx staggered, her aura waning down rapidly from the overuse of power. Even so, there was ten spectres left, and they were still moving, paying no attention to their fallen comrades. Kevin grabbed Jane's arm to stop her from collapsing completely.

"One last effort," he said, practically holding her up. "Can you get us in front of them, to the elevators?"

Jane stared up at him, her face pale and her eyes blank, and I was sure she was going to faint.

Then, without warning, shadows consumed us.

Suddenly, we were standing in front of the elevator doors in the lobby of the Empire State Building. The spectres were charging in our direction, as implacable as ever. Jane collapsed completely, slumping against one of the doors. Kevin and I exchanged a quick glance, and reached a silent agreement.

We started running towards the last of the army of ghosts, but we didn't realise just how exhausted we really were.

It only took one spectre to down Kevin. The first one he reached hit him hard in the face, and he stumbled backwards, slicing wildly with his sword. He managed to shear through the spirit's torso, but another ghost lunged forward and simply shoved him. Kevin flailed, and fell to the floor in an ungainly heap.

He didn't get back up.

I swallowed. Okay. Nine evil demon spectres against little old exhausted me. I could do this.

Before I could even think of something sarcastic to shout at them, they were on me.

I managed to duck under the guard of one and slice it up, but then another spectre sucker-punched me from behind. A terrible, deathly sensation of iciness cut into the centre of my skull, and I bent over double, shuddering. From the front, a spirit came at me and kicked me in the chest. I was thrown to the floor, landing heavily on my back. More terrible, numbing iciness flared up in my chest, as my whole body began to feel like it was both freezing and disintegrating at the same time.

I lay there, stunned. My sword had careered out of my hand at some point, and a spectre loomed over me, but I was too exhausted to fight. It reached down slowly, and wrapped freezing fingers around my neck.

Somehow, the shock of imminent strangulation gave me a last wheeze of strength. I kicked out desperately, trying to force the ghost away, but I was too weak. Gagging, I patted the ground around me, searching for my sword or Kevin's sword or something. _Anything_.

My fingers fell on a smooth, round stone.

Olivia's magic stone.

Acting without even thinking, I grabbed the stone and brandished wildly it in the direction of the spirits, summoning up every iota of will I had left. I barely even knew what I was doing, but somehow I dredged up all the energy in my being and with it, I _willed_ the stone to unleash its power. I didn't just try - I _believed_ that it would work for me.

Olivia's magic rock lit up, its runes glistening into glorious life. I kept concentrating, kept pushing, and somehow, by a miracle or something else, a beam of green light arced out of the stone and vaporised the spectre trying to strangle me.

The rest of them lurched backwards in a moment of surprise, and I managed to sit up, waving the stone wildly all the time. Three more were vaporised in the blink of an eye, then another. Only three remained, and the runes on the stone began to fade as my concentration ebbed away, but I plunged my free hand into a pocket and withdrew my piece of labradorite. I squeezed it tightly, and its stored sense of calm and stability surged into me. _That_ piece of stone gave me the last bit of energy I needed, and the runes on Olivia's rock lit up again. Green power vaporised two more spectres.

Finally, there was only one left, standing a few feet away. It lunged at me, and I cast out a final pulse of power. It cut through the ghost's legs, sending it crashing to the floor next to me. My strength gave out, and the stone dropped from my hand, the runes already fading.

My vision began to darken, but I forced myself to stay conscious for a moment more. I looked at the last spectre, making sure it was down. I hadn't hit its centre, where its power core was, so the thing was taking longer to evaporate. Its upper body was still whole, and it had raised its head to stare at me.

As I watched, a face began to form on the spectre's head. It was a terrible, old, gnarled face, neither man nor woman, more like a twisted, primal religious carving than anything that could be construed as human. It opened its mouth, and spoke in a voice I often hear in my nightmares.

"All this is nothing but a warning," hissed Tartarus, speaking through the spectre even as it faded into nothing. "These ghosts were merely the message. This will happen once more, with far worse consequences, if you do not meet my demand."

"What— what demand?" I managed to choke out.

The crooked face of Tartarus himself glared at me even as it evaporated.

"Surrender the Ritual of the Pit to me, by the winter solstice," it hissed, its voice darker than the midnight of death. "Surrender it, or watch this city suffer the consequences."

The spectre dissipated into tiny fragments of mist and memory, and, at long last, unconsciousness claimed me.


	4. Chapter Four

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

><p><span><strong>Piece of Darkness III - Middlegame<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Four<strong>

* * *

><p><em>"<em>_Being a detective isn't all about torture and murder and monsters. Sometimes it gets truly unpleasant."_

–Derek Landy, 'Skulduggery Pleasant'

* * *

><p>I woke up in the Camp Half-Blood infirmary.<p>

Um, wait.

More precisely, I woke up, sat bolt-upright in bed, looked around wildly like an alarmed rabbit, saw enough to realise I was in the infirmary, and then collapsed back onto the bed.

For a few vague moments of confusion, I couldn't figure out why I was even in the infirmary or how I'd got there, but as I woke up a little more, everything fell back into my mind with an emphatic thump. The spectres, the battle, the effort it had taken to stop them.

The message from Tartarus.

The one-room hospital was too dark to see more than vague outlines, but I could hear the sounds of breathing. The others, I guessed, as I lay there with my eyes closed. I didn't look around again, but just rested and thought for a while. For a number of minutes, I enjoyed the fact that nothing was trying to kill me.

I really wasn't a fan of armed combat.

After a while, I started to work things out.

It didn't feel like I'd been asleep all that long, so it was probably only a few hours since the battle with the spectres. Pretty much every joint in my body felt stiff, and my head was throbbing dully. Presumably, help from camp had arrived at some point after I'd managed to poof the last spectre. It was real nice of the cavalry to turn up once everything was over.

As I thought of the end of the fight, the memory of that voice - the voice of the pit - started to creep into the forefront of my mind, but I pushed it away. I was too tired to think about that now. Anyway, it didn't really seem like a good idea to chew that particular ominous moment over at night, in the dark. There are some things that should only be considered in the light of day.

I didn't think anything else for a few minutes, and I probably would have fallen back to sleep in another minute or two. Sounds of movement on my right roused me, though, and I turned over slowly.

I waited a moment or two before opening my eyes, just in case something was about to kill me. I wasn't really in the mood to catch someone in the act of murdering me.

When nothing happened, I cracked my eyes open warily, and saw the dim shape of Jane Welles lying on a bed next to me.

I blinked,

Despite the fact that there was barely enough light in the room to make out the ceiling or to see the end of the bed distinctly, Jane appeared to be reading a book.

Feeling unequal to the task of puzzling over this anomaly, I ignored it. I took another pause (I'm awfully slow when I wake up), before whispering, "Hey, Jane."

Jane looked up immediately, her dark eyes flicking from the pages of her book to my bed.

"Hey," she whispered back. "You're not dead. That's cool."

"Really?" I murmured slowly. "I'm sorry. You must be so disappointed."

Jane closed her book and placed it on her bedside table. "It's okay," she said, sitting up a little straighter in the bed. "You're not too dull or anything, so you can stick around."

"Are you trying to tell me," I said flatly, following her lead and sitting up in my bed. "that my life hangs in the balance of whether or not you find me too boring?"

"Well, yeah," Jane nodded, glancing with alarm at the other beds in the room as I rearranged my pillows a little too noisily. "All the monsters consult me when they're picking who they're going to kill next."

"Wow," I muttered, finally settling down. "You should make some business cards. Jane Welles: Destroyer of Boredom."

We sat in silence for a few moments. I noticed for the first time that we were close to the door of the infirmary, which was ajar. Slightly yellowish light from an overhead bulb spilled in through the gap, providing the room with its only illumination. Looking around at the other beds, I could make out only two other occupants, who were both asleep - or, at least, they were swathed in sheets and lying still.

"That's Kevin and Olivia," Jane confirmed my unspoken thoughts. "I woke up a little while after we arrived back. A couple of Apollo kids were handing around the ambrosia like it was Betty Crocker brownies. They nearly stuffed some down your throat, too, but I managed to stop them."

A chill of alarm rippled through me, followed by a wave of relief. "Thanks."

While I was an unusual mortal by most people's standards, I still didn't share most of the things that made a half-blood a demigod. Even a little nectar or ambrosia would kill me real dead.

"It's fine," Jane said, shrugging. "So then we were all bundled into bed, Kevin woke up briefly, but he went straight back to sleep when they gave him some nectar. I think that stuff works like a sedative on some people. They left us in here, told us not to talk—"

"Why would they tell us not to talk if three of us were unconscious?" I interjected, frowning.

"I don't know," Jane said, rolling her eyes. "Some of those Apollo kids are like 19th-century hospital matrons. Anyway, I fell asleep, and woke up about a half an hour ago."

"Ah," I nodded. "What time is it, then?"

Jane looked at a clock (which I hadn't noticed before) on the bedside table, and said, "Oh, it's nearly 5 a.m."

I peered intently at the clock, which was a good old-fashioned mechanical one, with none of those new-fangled digital displays or glowing green numbers. I couldn't make out the hands on it, never mind the numbers.

"Um," I said wisely, looking over at Jane with confusion. "How can you… read that clock?"

"Hey, don't ask me _that_," she said, looking back at me with her eyebrows raised in surprise. "I'm a daughter of Nyx, do you really think I can't see in the _dark_?"

"Oh yeah," I said slowly, rubbing my eyes.

Silence fell once more, though I didn't mind. It was nice, restful silence.

As I woke up more thoroughly, my thoughts started to move, inexorably, back to the battle. I realised that it had been the first real battle I'd ever been in. Admittedly, it hadn't exactly been a full-fledged clash between two armies or anything, but it had still been plenty intense for my liking. It was certainly one of the most stressful experiences I'd had, though it somehow hadn't been particularly traumatic. Maybe my journey to the depths of the Underworld had made me more or less immune to the shock of such pedestrian things as an attack of killer mutant ghosts.

"So, what happened after I was out?" Jane asked, as though she was reading my mind.

"Well…" I said slowly. For the first time, I thought about how I'd managed to use Olivia's magic rock. I had no clue how it had happened. I'd acted on pure instinct, and somehow I'd released the power in the stone. But I was just a mortal. That would have been impossible.

It's funny how often impossible things just sort of happen if no-one watches too hard.

I explained to Jane how Kevin had been taken down, and how I'd been the only one left. Her eyebrows scrunched together with both confusion and interest - she knew better than anyone that, when it came to confronting any number of enemies (even one) on my own, I wasn't exactly what you'd call Herculean. She was clearly struggling to imagine how I'd taken down all the killer spectres. I was having difficulty with the idea, too, to be honest.

I wasn't sure whether or not to be annoyed by how supremely unconcerned Jane looked as I recounted being strangled by a spectre.

"You could at least _try_ to look worried," I told her, trying to sound stern.

"What, why?" she said smilingly. "You're sitting right next to me, obviously you had it under control."

"Oh, yeah, totally under control," I said darkly. I detailed my sudden, instinctive usage of the magic stone, making abundantly clear how it had been a total fluke.

Jane sat in silence until I'd finished, and stayed quiet for a moment afterwards. I watched her, waiting for some wise observation. Finally, she looked at me, and said sanguinely, "You know, this means it was actually a _good_ thing that Olivia got hurled through those doors."

I just stared at her.

"Hey, if that hadn't happened, her stone wouldn't have been so handily close to you!" she said, raising her hands. "_Then_ where would we be?"

I shook my head. I'd heard of combat pragmatism, but this was ridiculous.

"But what do you think of this?" I asked her, shifting about a little in my bed. "How could I have called up that magic? It doesn't make any sense. I've never shown any ability like that before."

Jane took a moment to consider that. "I don't know," she stared intently into empty space. "Maybe you have some latent godly blood in the family tree, or something. Maybe a god reached out to help you, though _that_ seems very unlikely."

Another thought struck me, and I looked at Jane carefully. She, too, had displayed new abilities and powers during that battle. She'd seemed more powerful than ever before. Before that battle, any manipulation of the shadows had worn out her pretty much instantly, but Jane had lasted quite a long time during the conflict. It didn't take a great leap of imagination to guess that this power boost was linked to her new sword, her mysterious trip to the Underworld, and her overall change of demeanour.

I was sorely tempted to ask the daughter of Nyx then and there what was going on. I knew, though, that it would only put her on the defensive, and I'd done enough fighting for the moment.

"So that was it?" Jane said, emerging from her reverie and jolting me from mine. "You killed all the spectres?"

"Yeah," I nodded. I explained how I'd vaporised the rest of the ghosts, going into a lot more detail than was necessary - not because I particularly enjoyed this part of the story, but because I really didn't want to consider what had come next.

Finally, though, I had no choice.

"So there was only one spectre left," I told Jane, who was listening eagerly. "He nearly got me, but I managed to blast his legs off. And then…"

I paused, thinking of the moment when Tartarus had spoken through the spirit. I'd been so exhausted at the time that I'd barely connected with the terrible, cold darkness that had started to creep into me when he'd emerged. I'd last felt that ominous power when we'd been down at the Edge of the West, but somehow it seemed far worse up here, in the land of the living. Down in the Underworld, the shadowy presence of Tartarus did not seem overly out of place, but there in the lobby of the Empire State Building, it had felt like a tearing of nature.

"And then?" Jane prompted me.

I took a deep breath.

"And then, Tartar— the son of Chaos spoke to me."

("Son of Chaos" was the Tartarus' euphemistic name. Chiron kept telling us to use it instead of his true name. Something about not invoking the awareness of immensely powerful beings.)

"Okay," Jane said slowly, her eyes wide.

"He took over the last spectre," I plunged on, trying to avoid thinking of how chilling that moment had been. "He told me that the invasion of ghosts was only a warning. He said that if we didn't meet his demands, far worse things would happen to the whole city."

The sudden sound of quiet movement made Jane and I both jump, but it was only Kevin turning over in bed. The daughter of Nyx eyed him for a moment, then turned back to me.

"And what are his demands?" she asked, folding her arms tightly.

I thought about it for a brief moment, making sure I recollected it correctly. "He wants something called 'the Ritual of the Pit' handed over to him by the winter solstice.".

Jane looked rather blank and unimpressed. She looked away from me, tilting her head as she frowned in confusion.

"What's that?" she said uncertainly.

"I don't know," I yawned, starting to feel tired again. Telling the story had used up what little energy I'd gotten from sleep. "Something to do with the Son of Chaos, obviously." I paused, glanced towards the clock, remembered I couldn't see in the dark, and said, "What time is it now?"

"Oh, it's almost six o'clock," Jane said, her expression still rather puzzled.

I nodded vaguely, and started to say something else, but my tongue felt heavy with weariness. I blinked once, twice, trying to rouse myself. The third time I blinked, I fell asleep.

* * *

><p>Kevin was woefully unamused by the fact that he'd been beaten by a mere super-powered demonic spectre. For someone who didn't like conflict very much, he took success in battle very seriously.<p>

"To be fair, almost all of us got taken down," I said from my bed, trying to reason with him.

"_You_ didn't!" he exclaimed from his bed, managing to look fearsomely annoyed even whilst wearing teddy bear pyjamas. He folded his arms crossly.

"Well, they weren't as interested in attacking me, since I'm just the mortal guy, right?" I said, in placatory tone. Kevin's only reply was a dour head-shake.

Olivia was equally irritated, although I felt she had better justification for it - who wants to be thrown through the doors of the Empire State Building by a gang of intransigent monster ghosts? She'd started grumbling about two minutes after waking up.

"It was humiliating," she muttered, as she sat up in bed and plumped her pillows aggressively. "A daughter of Hecate, the _only_ child of Hecate with enough strength to perform quanta transmission without collapsing, and I end up being _thrown_ through a pair of stupid _doors_."

"Look at it this way," said Jane, who was already dressed and preparing to leave the infirmary. "You were brought down while heroically defending the entranceway to Olympus."

This did not mollify Olivia, who seemed to take it as a personal insult that she had been unable to personally annihilate every one of the spectres who'd been so impudent as to manhandle her.

(I didn't _dare_ mention how I'd used her stone. I didn't want to be turned into a frog or something.)

I rather hoped that I'd get to stay in the infirmary for a day or two. That way I'd stay out of all the morbid, apocalyptic discussions, maybe even get to miss the apocalypse altogether. It wasn't like they needed me around for it to happen. I could watch the billowing, hellfire-red mushroom clouds of destructions through the window.

Unfortunately, the only thing wrong with me was a lack of enthusiasm, and I was discharged by eleven o'clock. The others were also quickly dispatched back into camp, though they were a lot happier about it than me. Kevin and Jane were practically discharging themselves, and Olivia was so restless in bed that it was clearly counterproductive to keep her there any longer.

(Another reason why I'm glad I'm not a half-blood: it means I don't suffer from almost irrational bouts of ADHD. I mean, no disrespect to people who do, but seriously…)

We did at least get the morning off, though the good mood induced by this was greatly reduced by the announcement that a camp council was going to be held after lunch.

I hated these meetings. They weren't formal or anything, what with being held around the rec room's ping-pong table, but they always managed to make me feel like a total outsider. The half-bloods had their community, and it was usually indistinguishable from a regular teenager sort of community. When they were all together talking about serious mythological matters, though, I felt like a pacifist at an arms manufacturers' convention.

It wasn't that they _tried _to make me feel like an outsider (well, mostly), but something about this type of strategic conference forcefully reminded me that I didn't really belong in the demigod world. I understood the things they talked about, I participated in the discussion, but I always had a sense that I was simply not in my world.

Of course, that wasn't my only issue.

Since it had emerged that Tartarus, the ancient, evil primordial deity, was rising from the depths of his prison, we'd had a number of these councils. Supposedly, their purpose was to decide how to combat Tartarus, but all that ever happened was delays, delays, and more delays.

Chiron said that it wasn't possible for us alone to do anything to fight Tartarus, that we had to wait for him to make the first move. He said we couldn't just fight shadows.

That wasn't the full truth, though, and we all knew it. The reason we hadn't made any move against the son of Chaos was that the orders from on high were to sit on our hands and wait. And when I say "on high", I'm being literal. You don't get much higher than Mount Olympus, after all.

A lot of people were okay with this - most people, in fact. The Greek world had had a _lot_ of turmoil over the last decade, and very few people were keen for another war. The threat from Rhea had eased somewhat in the autumn, since Chiron had reached an agreement with Xavier Graecus, the Rhean high priest. The danger to mortals and to half-bloods had not quantifiably increased, so most people took the view that there was no point in chasing after shadows, because it would only plunge us into unnecessary darkness.

I understood that view. It was a reasonable one, a position completely founded on logic. I, of all people, could totally see that it made sense.

But I, of all people, knew that it was wrong.

Nico di Angelo, Alice Evans and I had been the three people who'd discovered Tartarus' awakening. We'd been _there_, at the very edge of western civilisation. We'd felt the dark power, the strength so great it made a powerful demigod such as Nico seem like little more than a twig in a hurricane. Perhaps if I'd seen the power of Tartarus from afar, I'd be able to pretend that it was no great threat, that it would just go away.

But I'd seen it close up. I'd felt that power hold my life in its hand, with only a tiny thought making the difference between life or death. I'd experienced the cold grasp of the pit - not only that. I'd seen the cold hand of Tartarus drag away Nico di Angelo.

So that was why I was always the advocate for action. A couple others agreed with me, among them Alice Evans, who backed me up whenever she was at camp - which wasn't very often. The world of the gods had taken too much from her.

But maybe now something would happen. The son of Chaos had certainly made a move, unless the gods were going to try to convince us that an invading army of demonic ghosts was actually a gesture of conciliation and friendship.

So for the first time, as I headed to the Big House for the meeting, I felt a little hopeful.

I was late to the council, as I'd gotten stuck telling the story of the battle to Josh and Sophie, the two magic-obsessed twins in the Hermes cabin. I hurried up to the farmhouse, and as I bounded up onto the porch, a cheery voice to my left said, "Hi!"

I looked around.

"Hi, Rachel," I said.

Everyone in camp knew who Rachel Dare was. Apparently she was the Oracle, though I could never quite believe it. Something about her paint-spattered jeans and her constant demeanour of anarchic friendliness didn't really fit with the idea of a serious, doom-bringing Oracle.

She was sitting in a wicker chair on the porch, in her usual T-shirt and jeans. I didn't really talk to her much, but I knew she was good friends with Percy and Annabeth. Everyone always seemed surprised that I wasn't best friends with her, since we were the only two mortals who spent time at camp, but the fact was that I hardly ever ran into her.

"What up, man," Rachel said drily, standing up and looking at me with those sharp green eyes. Her aura was the only thing that made her Oraclehood seem likely - it was a very bright green, and it looked oddly misty, totally unlike any demigod aura.

"I'm just going into the council," I said, tilting my head towards the doors. I guess my flat tone gave away my feelings, because Rachel grinned knowingly.

"Me, too, unfortunately," she said, stepping towards me and sticking her hands in her pockets. "I hate these things. It's so tedious, and everyone just argues."

I frowned at her, as I pushed open the door. "But I've never seen you at them."

"And now you know why," Rachel said cheerfully, walking in behind me and tugging the door shut.

We moved, slowly, towards the rec room, from which we could hear the murmur of voices and movement, as the demigods assembled.

"So I hear that you've got pure sight," the Oracle said, with unusual levels of interest.

"Uh, yeah," I replied, giving her a wary sidelong glance. A lot of people had been asking about that lately. It was starting to get a little tedious. The conversation usually ended in them being woefully unimpressed by my inability to blow things up.

"Cool," Rachel nodded. Then she stopped, a few feet away from the door into the rec room. I paused, too, turning to eye her curiously.

"Let me tell you something," Rachel said, glancing at the room ahead and lowering her voice conspiratorially. "Between us mortals."

"Yeah?" I said, crossing my arms. She was a few inches taller than me, but the Oracle was not remotely imposing.

"Those guys," she said, jerking her thumb towards the door, through which we could see the half-bloods milling around the ping-pong table. "They're a gang of idiots."

"Um," I said wisely, staring at her. I'd rather expected the Oracle to be a pretty big advocate for the role of the half-blood.

"For God's sake, look at them," she said impatiently, flapping her hands in the air. "They're discussing the fate of the world while standing around a _ping-pong table_."

"Yeah," I nodded, starting to smile. "But so are we."

Rachel rolled her eyes.

"Sure," she muttered, turning to step inside. "But at least we don't act like it's normal. These half-bloods are like, yeah so we're gonna save the world today, gonna kill some monsters. You and me are like, for Christ's sake, what's with the _we?_"


	5. Chapter Five

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

><p><span><strong>Piece of Darkness III - Middlegame<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Five<strong>

* * *

><p><em>Jim Moriarty: It's going to start very soon, Sherlock. The Fall.<em>

_–_Sherlock, 'The Reichenbach Fall'

* * *

><p>It took another ten minutes to get everyone properly assembled. Chiron called the meeting to order with his usual air of resigned irritation.<p>

I looked around the ping-pong table at the people who were supposed to save the world.

It wasn't a very inspiring bunch. Counsellors from all the main cabins were present, along with some representatives from the minor ones.

(I shouldn't call them "minor", but it annoys Jane.)

I barely knew the names of half of them. Some campers took it as a personal mission to befriend almost every half-blood at camp, but I didn't bother. Getting to know too many people can mean you have too many people to keep happy.

Some gods had only one kid at camp, like Poseidon. Percy was there, naturally, along with Annabeth. By some aberrant clash with the laws of nature, Zack Walker was the official Athena counsellor, but Annabeth was a legend in camp and no-one would dare begrudge her the post whenever she was around.

Alice Evans was there for the Apollo cabin. The last Apollo counsellor had left last summer, and Alice had been given his post, since she'd successfully journeyed to the far reaches of the Underworld and all. I spoke to her just before the meeting started.

"Had any premonitions of doom lately?" I asked cheerfully, leaning across the table to talk quietly.

"No," she replied, with a rueful smile. "But that doesn't mean there's no doom coming, remember?"

I shook my head. "Some prophet you are. I want my money back."

"Sorry," Alice said, giving me a mock wide-eyed stare. "You only get a refund if you die when you weren't meant to."

The Hephaestus counsellor was some guy named Leo Valdez. He was surprisingly young for a counsellor, only fourteen or so. Apparently he'd done something that really impressed the Hephaestus kids, something to do with a flying metal dragon.

I was always perpetually (and illogically) surprised when Kevin didn't turn up as Ares counsellor. In fact, he was too young and inexperienced to hold the post, though his near-defeat of the Hunters in capture-the-flag had certainly bumped him up the list of successors. I didn't even know the name of the actual Ares counsellor. He was some buff, scary guy who always looked ready to charge screaming into an apocalyptic battlefield. He wasn't present today, however. Clarisse La Rue, another camp legend, was here instead.

Piper McLean was the Aphrodite rep. I avoided those Aphrodite kids like the plague. I'd heard too many horror stories about them getting carried away with charmspeak.

The Hermes cabin was represented by Anna Fields, who always seemed to be interested in something completely irrelevant to the topic at hand. Sometimes I wondered if Hermes was actually the patron god of ADHD.

Jane had been appointed counsellor for a number of the minor cabins, mainly because she was so good at getting on with people. She handled the business of keeping people happy with such great ease, a career in politics seemed pretty plausible.

(I'd told her this, but surprisingly she wasn't flattered.)

Olivia was there, on behalf of the Hecate kids alone, which were quite a big group. The goddess of sorcery sure seemed fond of mortals - perhaps because we're so obsessed with spells and magic.

The remaining counsellors were a son of Dionysus, a son of Demeter and a daughter of Hypnos (another minor cabin rep). These three - whose names I didn't even know - seemed woefully uninterested in the idea of an apocalypse. Only several stern proclamations of the meeting's commencement made them pay some degree of attention.

(Hey, I guess the teenage stereotype _does_ have some living justifications!)

All of these half-bloods had their distinctive and bizarre auras, of course, though I'd become quite good at not getting distracted by them. I tended only to look at those halos of colourful light when it actually mattered - otherwise, I was able to ignore them.

Chiron stood at the top of the table, with the more senior demigods - Annabeth, Percy, Clarisse - and Rachel around him. The rest of us stood around the table's edges. I was next to Jane and Olivia, who were right next to Percy.

Finally, as everyone quietened down and began to stare expectantly at Chiron, Mr. D slouched in.

All of us turned, as one, to stare at him. We received a dark glare in reply, as he shuffled over to a bean bag by the wall. He'd barely sat down before he'd slipped a portable games console from his pocket.

(Apparently, Mr. D had previously spent these meetings by reading wine magazines, but when camp had started to use modern technology, he'd quickly become addicted to handheld gaming.)

"Right," Chiron said, not bothering to hide the irritation in his voice. "I think you all know why we're here. The son of Chaos recently made a direct attack on the main entrance to Olympus."

I was expecting at least some exhalations of alarm, but none of the half-bloods made a sound or seemed surprised. No-one's expression changed, in fact, though the atmosphere certainly became grimmer.

"He sent an army of ghosts, spectres that he released from the Underworld via a backdoor," Chiron went on stolidly, his eyes roving from face to face. "Four campers were stationed at the Empire State Building to face this force: Kevin Andrews, Olivia Hartnell, Jane Welles and Cyrus Wright."

A couple of murmurs of surprise rustled among those half-bloods who didn't know me personally, while the others just seemed surprised that I'd managed to avoid running myself through with a sword.

"The ghosts proved to be far more dangerous than I had anticipated. Fortunately, the defenders managed to defeat them all. For that, we must thank them," Chiron looked at Jane, Olivia and I, bowing his head a little. Then he glanced sideways at Mr. D, and cleared his throat pointedly.

The god looked up, his eyes unfocussed, and muttered, "Yes! That's right. Sonic did well."

We all exchanged resigned glances.

"Anyway," Chiron continued, turning back to us. "I thought it would be more productive if all of you counsellors heard the report from the battle first-hand, so that we avoid any confusion. Cyrus and the others will now tell us everything that took place."

Cyrus and the others now told them everything that took place.

We took turns describing the events on Fifth Avenue. At first, many people looked only vaguely interested, but as the story progressed, eyes widened and air was sharply inhaled as everyone listened intently. A grim look came across Annabeth's eyes, which I always consider equivalent to a warning of imminent nuclear disaster. Clarisse grew tenser and tenser, her fists clenched upon the table's edge, though she did seem at least a little impressed by how we'd faced down the whole legion of spectres. Percy wore a deep frown, though this tended towards making him look puzzled rather than concerned.

When Olivia got to the part about being unceremoniously flung through the doors of the Empire State Building, even Mr. D glanced up. Jane described how she'd taken us in front of the remaining spectres, and then I had to finish the tale.

Sometimes I can be pretty boastful, but not over something so serious, and especially not with so many people listening. I did what I could to downplay my role after Kevin passed out. Still, it's hard to understate the impossibly bizarre nature of a vanilla mortal summoning up the unstoppable power of spectre-exploding magic.

"But, that's not possible!" Olivia exclaimed, somewhat redundantly, whilst the others looked at me in amazed confusion. "Only a person with some minimum of magical ability can use those stones, and _no_ mortal can activate them unless they have godly blood somewhere in their family tree!"

"That's not always the case," Chiron interjected, calmer than anyone else in the room. "Some regular mortals are known to wield magic, but generally only in extreme circumstances. I think we will find that if Cyrus tried to use magic right now, it would be impossible. He probably has just enough capability to activate a magical focus in a life-or-death situation. Please, continue."

This rather put a dampener on the demigods, who seemed very eager to accept the idea that I was actually a wizard. Presumably, it would have made it easier for them to understand why the heck a mortal was being made hang around Camp Half-Blood. I wasn't really convinced by Chiron's explanation, either, but I decided to put it aside. There was certainly enough going on.

I quickly finished the rest of the tale, finally reaching the emergence of the son of Chaos and the message he'd given.

"He said he wanted this Ritual of the Pit by the winter solstice," I said, in conclusion. "He told me that if we didn't hand it over, the city would suffer."

I fell silent. Everyone continued to eye me for a brief moment, as they absorbed my grim announcements. Even Anna Fields was focussed on the matter at hand. The significance of Tartarus coming close to breaking into Olympus on his first attempt was not lost on any of us. I looked at Chiron.

The centaur's mouth was set in a thin, tight line, and his eyes were downcast. He didn't seem surprised or shocked - simply worried, deeply, deeply worried. He seemed not to notice that I'd finished talking, and he only looked up when Percy asked, "So… what does this mean?"

Chiron took a long, deep breath, before looking at us all and saying, "Well, this is exactly what I feared." He met my eyes. "Thank you, Cyrus, for reporting all of this. I wish I could tell you and your friends that that was the last time you'll have to face the son of Chaos, but I fear the truth is quite the opposite."

"But what was he talking about?" Percy said, looking rather alarmed now. He pressed his hands down on the table, making it creak a little. "What's this ritual thing?"

"I've never heard of it," Annabeth murmured, her arms folded, her fingers drumming on her forearm. "There's so little information on the son of Chaos in any of the archives."

A few murmurs of confusion worked through the half-bloods, until everyone went quiet again, now waiting for Chiron to explain things. He took a moment, gathering his thoughts.

"I know what the ritual is," he said finally, not quite looking at anyone in particular. "At least, I know _of_ it. Its existence isn't publicised, and for good reason."

Chiron paused again. For once, no-one spoke.

"I don't know for certain if the following is true," he went on, looking at the backs of his hands. "Hardly anyone knows the full and exact truth about this piece of magic. What I believe to be the case is that the Ritual of the Pit is an ancient rite, a ceremony of power that has one terrible purpose. It has never been proven or confirmed, but the consensus among us who know of this is that it is designed to raise the son of Chaos from his prison and into our world."

I think a few people shivered. I know I did.

"How?" Annabeth asked quietly, her grey eyes frozen over with anxiety. "Can the ritual bring him _all_ the way up from the pit?"

Chiron rubbed his brow, sighing. He looked tired, and there was a lack of energy in his shoulders, as though even talking about this was draining him of all hope and enthusiasm.

"Not entirely," he answered. "I don't think any ritual would be capable of that. The son of Chaos is enchained by many distinct measures. What is definite is that the ritual works to aid his rise. Most likely, it releases his consciousness from where it is incarcerated in the pit of Tartarus. I don't know the specifics: this is the sort of thing which the gods have kept hidden and secret. No-one wants to be responsible for letting the son of Chaos back into the world."

"So, let me get this straight," Leo Valdez broke in suddenly. His eyes were lit up with almost manic alarm. "What's happened here is that Tart— the pit guy sent this army of monster spirits to warn us that if we don't give him the shovel he needs to dig his way up to us, he'll make some seriously crazy crap go down."

"Replace 'shovel' with 'gargantuan tunnel-carving machine'," Chiron said darkly, "and you have it exactly right."

This seemed to merit a moment of silence, because no-one spoke for a minute or two, as we contemplated this warning of an apocalypse.

Somehow, I wasn't overly surprised. It had always seemed a mere matter of time until Tartarus would start to make his moves, to pose his threats. In a way, this wasn't _too_ bad - at least he hadn't immediately launched into a massive apocalyptic attack on Olympus. At least this way, we had a _forewarning_ of the apocalypse.

(I'm grasping at straws, aren't I?)

"So, what are we supposed to do?" Clarisse said finally, crossing her arms with a frustrated air. "If we give him the ritual, one thing will lead to another, and eventually he'll be here, trying to kill us all personally. If we don't give him the ritual, he'll send his minions to kill us all by proxy."

This clarification didn't exactly improve the mood of the group. I couldn't help noticing how everyone's auras had darkened and dulled. Things were looking more dire than even the demigods were used to.

"Thank you for summarising the situation so clearly, Clarisse," Chiron said, sounding slightly amused. "Well, clearly we cannot give the ritual to the son of Chaos. We'd probably be better off handing him a nuclear warhead."

"Now there's an idea," Clarisse muttered.

"There's a chance that this is all a bluff," Annabeth interjected. She'd been deep in thought for several minutes, and seemed now to be reaching conclusions. "If Hades can find a way to stop the spirits escaping the Underworld, the son of Chaos won't have any resources to mount further attacks."

"But that's assuming Tar— the son of Chaos doesn't have some other back exit that Hades doesn't know about," I pointed out. "We're talking about the god of the oldest, darkest prison in existence. All the monsters _live_ in Tartarus. How do _we_ know he doesn't have another way to get his armies up to us?"

As is often the case, no-one was happy to hear my suggestion, though nobody disputed it. Annabeth nodded vaguely and went back to frowning fiercely at the table, while a few of the more inexperienced half-bloods glared at me as though it was all my fault.

"But maybe we're overestimating the power of his armies," Jane suggested, looking at Chiron hopefully. "After all, just four of us managed to take down all those spirits. Imagine how easily a whole army of demigods would deal with the threat."

A few people, including Percy and Leo, nodded at this. Some others went from looking at me as though I was actually Tartarus incarnate to gazing at Jane as though she was Athena herself.

Unfortunately, Annabeth, the _daughter_ of Athena, had a more sobering thought.

"Remember, all of you," she said, looking around at us all solemnly. "One of the worst mistakes any strategist can make is to underestimate the opponent's strength. Those forces were meant as a warning, not as a real invading army."

I sighed, shaking my head. This seemed impossible. Whatever we did, Tartarus had us caught in a trap. It could be that he was bluffing - but it was too risky for us to assume that. We seemingly had no option but to give him the ritual - but that would mean we'd be screwed anyway. In a single, tiny move, Tartarus had cornered us all.

I took a step back from the table, and tried to visualise the situation as a chess game. The others went on talking, but I paid no attention. I pictured it in my mind. Most pieces were still on the board, but already Tartarus had us a few moves away from checkmate. His strategy was quickly tightening around us. It seemed that every angle was covered.

I used my favourite technique: I looked at the situation from my opponent's point of view.

What did Tartarus expect from us? What reply did he anticipate to his threat?

You might think that it would be rather difficult to conceive the expectations of an incredibly ancient primordial being, but the answer came to me, emerging from my thoughts like a submarine from a stormy sea.

He would expect us to defy him.

After all, that's what the children of the gods did. That's what the Olympians did. Every threat, every danger, every monster was faced. The record was there. The gods and their offspring did not negotiate with terrorists.

But now, against a threat darker than any other, we needed a different strategy. To gain an advantage, I realised, we had no choice but to catch the opponent unawares and use his surprise against him.

"I know what to do," I said abruptly, talking over Leo, who was arguing a point animatedly.

Everyone looked at me, as I stepped back to the edge of the table.

"Come again?" Annabeth said, eyeing me carefully.

I swallowed, suddenly becoming aware of the focus now resting on me.

"I know what to do," I repeated, making a bad attempt at sounding certain. "It's not as complicated as you think."

Many of the demigods exchanged doubtful looks, but said nothing.

"Okay," Chiron said slowly, not looking overly confident himself. "What is it?"

I took a deep breath.

"We give the son of Chaos the ritual," I said. "Or, at least, we give him a very similar copy."

Unsurprisingly, this suggestion was not met with any great amount of enthusiasm.

"Um, Cyrus," Percy said slowly, obviously trying not to offend me. "I don't see how that helps."

"It's obvious," I replied, talking a little more excitedly. This had to be the solution. "Tartarus wants some kind of scroll or book or something, right? The ritual must be written on it. We go get it and make a copy, but not an _exact_ one. We change the ritual a little bit - alter the incantations, change the ingredients list, I don't know. But we make sure to fix it so that the ritual will completely backfire and actually send Tar— the son of Chaos _deeper_ into his prison."

It took a moment for this to percolate through the minds of the half-bloods. Annabeth was the first to get it.

"Of course," she said, a smile of comprehension spreading across her face. "That's perfect. The last thing he'll expect us to do is to just _hand_ him the ritual, so he won't suspect something like this."

"Who knows?" Jane said, rubbing her hands thoughtfully. "Maybe this will take care of him completely."

The hopefulness of my idea spread through the half-bloods, making their collective mood pick up. Both faces and auras brightened, and even Chiron seemed to relax a little. I gave myself a mental clap on the back. It's always nice being the one with the clever solution.

"That's all great," Rachel Dare said suddenly. "But where _is_ the ritual?"

Everyone looked at her. She'd spoken very little throughout the meeting, apparently content to observe our discussion without getting involved. She stood a few feet behind and to the right of Chiron. I got the feeling that she preferred to stay mostly neutral. I guess sitting on the fence is the most appropriate position for an Oracle.

"Good point, Rach," Annabeth said, looking slightly annoyed that she hadn't been the first one to ask this one. "Where is it, Chiron?"

Rachel's detached air discouraged the gazes of the half-bloods, and they were happy to shift their focus to Chiron. He didn't answer right away, seemingly distracted by his thoughts. He only looked up after a lengthy moment of consideration.

"This is an excellent idea," Chiron declared, meeting my eyes. "Thank you, Cyrus, This can solve many problems. As for the ritual, well, that may be a little more difficult. It is held in the gods' own personal citadel of mythology, where they store every single artefact, scroll and record pertinent to their existence."

Most of us just looked at Chiron blankly, but Annabeth seemed to know what he was talking about.

"But I thought that was just a myth!" she exclaimed, leaning towards Chiron a little. "Is it real?"

"Of course it's a myth," he replied, with a smile. "But that doesn't mean it isn't real. No, Olympus Library is a real, powerful and heavily guarded place, and it is where we will find the Ritual of the Pit."


	6. Chapter Six

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

><p><span><strong>Piece of Darkness III - Middlegame<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Six<strong>

* * *

><p><em>Rustin Cohle: You know, when people give me advice, I reckon they're only talking to themselves.<em>

–'True Detective'

* * *

><p>"No, the knight, not the bishop!"<p>

"What?"

"Too late, you've taken your hand away."

"But why would I move the knight? It'll only expose the pawn."

"Yeah, but now you've moved the bishop, you've left your _other_ knight wide open."

I scowled at the board.

Kevin and I were sitting across from each other at the Hermes table in the dining pavilion, playing chess. We were the only people there: everyone else in camp had important things to do, but Kevin and I had been given the whole day off, on account of our heroics.

The meeting had broken up half an hour ago. I suppose I _could_ have declined the free time and gone to an archery class, but I'm not a _total_ nimrod.

"So what he did say then?" the son of Ares asked, pondering his next move.

I sighed. "Well, then Chiron told us that no demigod has been allowed into Olympus Library in hundreds of years."

The son of Ares frowned, though whether at the board or at what I'd said, I wasn't sure.

"But he said he's confident that the gods will provide clearance, since, you know, the evil ancient primordial force of darkness and monstrosity has threatened to attack and destroy the Olympians' home city," I finished.

Kevin's frown deepened. "He actually said that?" he asked, glancing up at me briefly.

"Well, not exactly," I conceded, rubbing my gloved hands together. The dining pavilion was a good spot for some peace and quiet in the daytime, but it still wasn't exactly toasty in this wintry weather. "He said that the gods would provide clearance since this is an _exceptional circumstance_, but we all knew what he meant."

"Ah," Kevin nodded. He finally took my knight, making the move with his usual demure air, as though the ingenious manoeuvre was actually a lucky accident.

I went back to glaring at the chessboard. Playing with Kevin had been all well and good when he'd lacked the confidence to commit to a strategy, but now that I'd helped him find some self-belief, I was losing with worrying frequency.

(Me and my goddamn inclination to be helpful.)

"So who's going to get the ritual?" Kevin asked. I heard a note of laughter in his voice, and I glanced up at him. Sure enough, there was a glint of amusement in his eyes. My incredibly bad position in the game was providing him with great entertainment, as usual.

"Annabeth," I muttered, hesitatingly reaching my hand towards a pawn, before flinching away from it as though it was made of fire when I saw how bad an idea it was to move it. "She was unanimously elected to be the ritual-retriever."

A chilly wind blew, nearly toppling over a few pieces. I cast a dark look into the ether.

"I say elected," I went on, moving my one remaining rook, "but it wasn't that formal. Jane asked, 'Who's going to get the ritual?' and everyone in the room just looked at the daughter of Athena."

Kevin laughed.

"She's kind of the obvious choice, though, right?" he said, drumming his fingers on the table slowly as he examined the board. I prayed that he'd be fooled into thinking I actually had a plan.

We fell silent as the son of Ares planned his move. I glanced around the pavilion. It was funny how almost no-one ever came here, apart from at mealtimes. Admittedly, it wasn't the most hospitable of areas, since the heat from the fire at the pavilion's centre didn't spread very far in the icy cold. It had proper tables, though - that doesn't sound particularly spectacular, but the only other places at camp with decent tables were the Big House, the arts/crafts building and a few of the more erudite cabins.

Then again, I mused, not many campers tended to _need_ proper tables. Dyslexic, ADHD teenaged half-bloods don't usually tend towards activities that involve sitting around at _tables_.

"Was that it, then?" Kevin asked, unsubtly trying to distract me from the fact that he'd just taken my queen.

"Oh, he just went into the logistics of the expedition," I replied, not bothering to disguise the grumpy look I threw his way. "Apparently security clearance should arrive from Olympus by tomorrow morning, and Annabeth will leave as soon as she gets it."

"I wonder what 'security clearance' will mean," the son of Ares said absently, tightening his scarf. "Will they send, like, a glowing gold passport?"

I shrugged.

A little hope returned to me as I considered the board again. Kevin had missed something! There was an opening in his defences, albeit a risky one. I tried not to break into a grin as I planned my last-ditch offensive.

"He also said that Annabeth needs two people to go with her," I added, disguising my glee with a solemn frown. "I don't see why. Something to do with three people being better for the mythological ju-ju of the quest."

"Did Chiron say it like that?" Kevin asked doubtfully.

"No," I shook my head. I worked hard to appear innocent and relaxed as I nudged my bishop into position. "So she has to pick two people by tomorrow morning. I'd say she'll bring two of her siblings."

Kevin leaned forward, peering at my side of the board with narrowed eyes. I crossed my fingers under the table.

"As long as Zack doesn't go," he muttered darkly. "He'd never shut up if he got on a big mission like this."

"She won't be bringing him," I said, with surety. I leaned back and folded my arms. "The two of them don't exactly get along. Zack is even bossier than Annabeth, and he's not terribly loyal. That doesn't really endear him to her, as you can imagine…"

"Yeah," Kevin nodded. He went very still as he considered the state of play.

We sat in silence for a moment. Kevin's moves were always longer than mine. He tended to take his time, considering everything, thinking innumerable moves into the future. I tried to do that, too, but sometimes I got irritated and just moved whatever seemed like a good idea. Amazingly, this rarely went well for me.

"So what do _you_ think of everything that's going on?" I asked him, trying to use a little conversation to make him miss the checkmate I was trying to cobble together. "Got any wise observations for me?"

"I don't know…" he muttered vaguely. He knew my tactics, and didn't look up until he'd made his move. Finally, he shifted his queen a mere square.

"Things are a bit confusing, I think," he said, meeting my gaze. "Why has the son of Chaos taken action now?"

"I guess because he's gotten strong enough," I shrugged, reaching towards a pawn. "What else could it be?"

"True," Kevin nodded, resting his chin on his hand, watching me. "But then, why would he demand the ritual, if he knows that we're going to refuse to hand it over? It's not like the gods have a record of being compliant."

I paused, my hand in mid-air. That was a good point. My whole idea of giving Tartarus a copy was built on the fact that he wouldn't expect the gods to obey him - so what _did_ he expect to achieve by making this ultimatum?

"Maybe he's trying to incite us," I said, lowering my hand as I reconsidered the move. "He's trying to make us react, so that we put ourselves in a vulnerable position. Then he'll be able to slink in from behind and stick in the knife."

"Makes sense," the son of Ares replied, his eyes drifting back and forth between me and the board. I kept my face completely neutral, making sure I gave no indication of the fact that I was three moves away from victory.

We always played like this. We talked normally, without even a tiny hint of competitiveness seeping into the conversation. The quick movements of our eyes and the tiny twitches of our expressions always told the real story. It was funny, really. _Listening_ to us would make you think we were just two guys having an interesting chat. _Looking_ at us would make you think we were having a complex, life-or-death battle of wills.

I made my move, and tried not to break into a grin. Two moves, now.

"I wonder where Jake falls in all of this," Kevin said suddenly, his eyes flickering from piece to piece.

"He doesn't have much to do with any of it, at this point," I said, shrugging. "Chiron and the Rheans agreed to have a truce until the threat from Tart— the son of Chaos has been removed. Jake was one of Rhea's head loonies, right? So now he's got nothing to do. He probably spends his time practicing villainous grins in the mirror."

"I suppose," Kevin nodded, not sounding entirely convinced. He moved his knight, a decision which seemed completely pointless to me. "I've always wondered why he has such an interest in you, though."

The wind picked up again, and the icy breeze made me shiver. I drew my jacket tighter about me. "What do you mean?"

"Think about it," he said, looking up at me and raising his eyebrows. "He's with the Rheans, right?"

I nodded.

"You told me Hades said that the gods think you're important for stopping Tartarus, or something like that?"

"He said there's a prophecy," I said, starting to scowl. The _prontos profiteia_ was not something I liked to talk, or even think about. "A prophecy that says a dark time will come for the gods, when the shadows rise, and one person will be able to turn the tide."

"Right," Kevin said levelly. "And that threat is obviously Tartarus, and the gods think you're the one who can save the day."

"So what's your point?" I said testily - a little _too_ testily. I'd been trying to avoid thinking about this ever since I'd learned of it.

"Just think about it," Kevin repeated. He spread his hands flat on the table. "Tartarus is the major threat, not Rhea, and yet Jake, who works for Rhea, was the one interested in you."

I frowned, looking back at the chessboard. I didn't like to admit it, but Kevin was raising a valid point. If I was important to a fight between the gods and Tartarus, what could that possibly have to do with Rhea? I shook my head frustratedly, as I made my penultimate move.

"Maybe it's because Tartarus rising disrupts Rhea's own plans," I suggested, scratching my head. "I'd say an ancient primordial deity starting a fight with the Olympians would probably cause her a few problems. It'd be in her interests for the son of Chaos to be put away easily and quickly."

The son of Ares didn't reply right away, but sat in thought for a long moment, considering both my words and the chessboard. Finally, he made a move, and looked up at me.

"I don't know about that," Kevin said, shaking his head. "Any problem for the gods would be an opportunity for Rhea. I still think there's something else going on." He glanced at the board, smiled, and said, "Checkmate, by the way."

I stared at the chessboard in disbelief. All that time, Kevin had been arranging another manoeuvre which I hadn't even noticed. The attack I'd thought he'd been planning had been a distraction, and he'd set things up so that when I tried to make a checkmate, it left me defenceless against his.

* * *

><p>Kevin and I hung around the pavilion for a while longer before heading back to our cabins. When I reached the Hermes cabin, I found, to my surprise, Annabeth standing outside of it.<p>

"Uh, hi," I said warily, as I approached.

Annabeth Chase was one of those demigods who I always found a bit scary. Probably it was because of her aura, which surrounded her head like a stormy halo. The auras of all children of Athena were focussed around their heads, presumably because, you know, they were so smart. It was more pronounced with Annabeth, though. It seemed like literally her entire aura was whirling around her head. There was another, subtler difference, too - her colourful halo had a sense of intangible intensity to it that was a little disconcerting.

Somehow, though, that was not the only disconcerting thing about Annabeth Chase. Her steely gaze could get so dark and intense, I would often wonder if she was determining the most effective and efficient way to kill me.

"Hi, Cyrus," she said. She was standing around outside the front door of the Hermes cabin, and the air of relief she had as she greeted me suggested that she'd been waiting for me. I stopped in front of her, waiting.

"I came down to ask," Annabeth said, gazing at me steadily, "if you will come with me to Olympus Library."

Uh.

I just eyed her for a moment.

I'd taken it for granted that Annabeth would be bringing her own siblings to Olympus. It sounded like a no-brainer: who else would you bring along when visiting one of the oldest libraries in existence, but your siblings who are natural scholars and librarians? That was the logical choice, and Annabeth didn't strike me as one for making decisions based on sentimentality or random instinct.

Obviously, I'd made a mistake somewhere in that line of logic. Hell, it wasn't like I was unhappy. Of course I wanted to visit the library that held all the records of ancient mythologies, but I simply could not understand _why_. I couldn't help but wonder if a joke was being played on me, or if I was being set up.

(I really overthink things.)

I wasn't able to translate all this into words, however, and instead just said, in an uncertain tone, "Why me?"

Annabeth looked unsurprised at my question - I kind of got the impression that she would've been disappointed if I _hadn't_ asked it.

"I need people who are reliable," she said seriously. "Alice told me how well you dealt with the situation down in the Underworld, and I thought you sounded like just the sort of person I need."

I opened my mouth and closed it again, feeling a little overwhelmed. I didn't often get compliments from demigods, so to be getting one from _Annabeth Chase_ was a little surreal.

"Wouldn't you be better with, I don't know, Percy or Clarisse?" I asked, not sure why I was arguing.

Annabeth snorted. "Are you crazy? Those two are great warriors, but if I bring them along, we'll be lucky if the Library hasn't been burnt to the ground by the time we're done."

I nodded, and started to grin as it sank in that I was getting to visit the mother of all mythological libraries. There'd probably be a predictable "touch nothing" rule, but still.

"Okay," I said. "Great. Thank you."

Annabeth smiled in reply, looking a little relieved. She clapped her gloved hands together, and said, "Good. Be ready to leave tomorrow."

"I will," I nodded, as she turned and walked off in the direction of her cabin.

I stood there for a moment, taking in that conversation. It had never really occurred to me that other people would hear - or even care - about the things I'd done in the Underworld last summer . Who on earth would be interested in the random misadventures a hapless mortal got himself into? And I hadn't thought I'd done anything particularly stand-out down there. If I had, why wasn't Nico here with us at camp?

For the first time, though, I realised that maybe some half-bloods didn't just care about results. In a volatile world like this one, bad things could happen at any time, no matter what anyone did. Each person could only do so much, and I guess what really mattered was how _well_ each person did what they could. It figured that wiser demigods, like Annabeth, would understand this.

(Still, I _really_ didn't think I'd done anything all that great on the journey to the Edge of the West, but maybe I was judging myself by the wrong standards.)

(And hey, who was I to argue with Annabeth Chase, architect of Olympus, defender of the West?)

* * *

><p>Only Camp Half-Blood would have a campfire singalong the night after the darkest primordial being in existence tried to break into Olympus itself.<p>

I guess you have to give them points for positivity.

Sometimes I skipped these singalongs, but tonight I was feeling a bit more _esprit de corps_ than usual. I was still buoyed up from Annabeth's invitation, and the fact that we were, after all, using my plan to counter Tartarus made me feel particularly self-confident.

So, I headed for the amphitheatre along with the other campers.

The general mood among the demigods was still typically bright. The story of what had happened at the Empire State Building hadn't yet filtered out through the camp, and those who knew the details didn't seem eager to share them. I was glad of this. The less people that knew of Tartarus' threat, the less people that would be panicking or arguing, and the last thing we needed was any kind of discord.

I looked around for Jane or Kevin, as I was buffeted along amidst the crowd of half-bloods heading from the dining pavilion to the amphitheatre. I couldn't see Jane anywhere, but I spotted Kevin with a few of his siblings.

(It always amazed and amused me how much the Ares kids liked singalongs. You'd think that the children of the _war god _would not be fond of jovially chanting old ballads around a blazing fire, but they enjoyed it nearly as much as a sword-fighting tournament.)

(The fact that many of the songs involved dramatic, bloody, and/or corpse-laden heroic deeds was probably a key contributing factor.)

The Apollo children always led the singalong. A group of five or six of them stood at the centre of the amphitheatre, taking turns to direct proceedings. The fire at the very centre of the amphitheatre was enchanted so that its colour reflected the mood of the surrounding campers. Tonight it was a cheerful, crackling golden yellow, though there was a few sparks of darker red and brown.

We all funnelled through the main entrance. In here, inter-cabin interaction was encouraged, and seating was not arranged according to godly parent. In my good mood, I embraced the principles of socialisation, and sat down on the nearest bench, without checking to see who else was there.

This turned out to be something of a mistake.

"Oh, hi there, Cyrus," a chilly voice said in my ear.

I looked around in confusion, and my heart sank.

I'd sat down next to Zack Walker and his buddies.

The son of Athena looked down at me with a dark air, sort of like an infuriated owl. He was a good head taller than me, something which he did not fail to emphasis at any possible opportunity.

"Um. Hi, Zack," I muttered, wondering if I should cut my losses and get up right away.

"How are you?" he said smoothly and friendlily. A little _too_ friendlily. His tone didn't really match the derisive look in his grey eyes.

I cautiously glanced down the bench. To my horror, a collection of Zack's friends and allies ranged the whole length of it. None of them were what you could call _pro-mortal_.

"I'm okay," I said neutrally, looking back at Zack. His gaze was cold, but his face was very still, as though he was holding himself back. For some insane reason, this encouraged me. I decided to hang on for a few more moments. Perhaps it would be good, I reasoned, to try to mend divisions by extending the hand of friendship. I mean, I might _lose_ said hand, but you have to take risks every now and then.

"How are _you_?" I said, making an effort to sound relatively polite and friendly.

"Oh, I'm well," Zack said, looking a little surprised that I hadn't run away already. He started to say something else, but was cut off as the first song began.

A cheerful-looking son of Apollo (which is really a redundant statement) with spiky hair and a vivid golden aura was beginning a resounding rendition of _The Ballad Of Hercules_. He waved his hands enthusiastically, and the campfire blazed higher as the ballad was gradually picked up by the half-bloods.

"Altogether now!" Spiky Hair declared.

And so the song rang out through the amphitheatre.

_Hercules the hero, Hercules the great,_

_He was a symbol, an emblem with weight._

_The son of Zeus used power,_

_But he did not turn sour._

_He fought the monsters,_

_And was reborn in the stars._

(I never said that the demigods were good songwriters.)

It went on for another six verses, but I don't think I need to record them here. Some things should be left in the past.

As the song ended (the Apollo kids were, as always, the last to fall silent, as they dragged out the final verse interminably), Zack said, "So I hear that you were at Olympus."

"Yeah," I said slowly, eyeing him. I wasn't sure how this conversation was going to end, but it felt like I ought to stick with it. "Me and a few others. We were holding off the spectres."

"What was that like?" he asked, in a calm tone.

I paused, thinking. I hadn't really spoken to Zack since early August, and that had only been a brief discussion about capture-the-flag. He hadn't been openly rude to me since I'd helped camp nearly beat the Hunters at capture-the-flag. That said, I'd heard a lot of rumours that he was sowing seeds of doubt about me around camp.

"It was okay," I said finally. "Pretty intense, you know?"

"Yeah," Zack nodded. His friends weren't saying anything to us, just talking among themselves. A few kept casting watchful glances in my direction.

The Apollo kids hadn't begun their next song yet. There seemed to be some disagreement over who was going to lead it. Three of them were arguing vociferously with a fourth, who appeared to be holding the lyric sheet hostage.

"So I heard that Annabeth's going to Mount Olympus," Zack went on, his steady gaze resting on me.

Alarm bells should have started going off in my head at that point, but I was still feeling suicidally sociable.

"Yep," I nodded. "That should be fun for her."

"Any idea who's going with her, by any chance?" he asked, his tone growing sharper.

"Um…" I said slowly, abruptly aware that declaring how _I _was going with her probably wouldn't be a smart move. A few more of Zack's gang eyed me, now with open derision.

The Apollo kids finally got their problem sorted out, and the song began. The marching ballad, _Blood Of The Sun,_ was picked up by the half-bloods, slowly spreading upwards through the amphitheater towards us.

"I heard a few rumours," Zack went on, ignoring the singing.

Finally, I realised where this was headed, and started feeling awfully naive for not getting away while I had the chance.

"I heard someone say," he said carefully, not taking his eyes - which seemed to be growing colder by the second - off me, "that _you_ were going."

The way he said "you", like I was some kind of bad weed, was what finally pushed me out of my friendly, sociable state. I scowled. I could understand Zack having a problem with me going instead of, say, him, but that didn't give him the right to talk to me like I was a piece of bad dust on his bookshelf.

"So what if I am?" I replied, sitting up straighter in my seat, my fists clenching.

A couple of heads in the row below us turned our way, but quickly turned away again as the tempo of the song picked up.

"Well, Cyrus," Zack said, crossing his arms, "I don't know if you're the best person for this. I mean, no disrespect or anything, but there's far more appropriate people available."

I stared at him. My own gaze had probably become as cold as his.

"Excuse me?" I said, my voice little more than a whisper. How dare he talk to me like this? Had _he_ been there at Olympus? Had _he_ faced the army of spectres?

"You know," he said, smiling a little, as though that would make his words more palatable. "You're not exactly someone who needs to be going to the home of the gods."

So that's what it was all about. Full understanding turned the pit of my stomach cold. Despite everything, Zack was still holding onto his stupid prejudices. Obviously those rumours had been true.

"And why is _that_?" I snapped, my voice going up quite a bit.

"You're a mortal," Zack said, dropping any attempt to hide the contempt in his tone. "You have no place in the Olympians' place of power. It just isn't your world."

I rose to my feet very slowly, my fists clenched tight. People were starting to stare now, with more and more heads turning towards us. Anger shuddered within me. It may not be right, it may not be wrong, but I have my pride, and I would not let anyone suggest that I wasn't as worthy as any demigod. It wasn't about going to Olympus - it was about one person standing equal to any other.

"You really think," I said, trying to keep my voice relatively low, "that just because I don't have some bloody godly blood in my veins, I'm not worthy of visiting Olympus?"

Zack looked up at me, almost but not quite expressionless. His friends watched me carefully, perhaps waiting for me to throw myself at their leader. He took his time replying, taking a deep breath before answering, "Yes."

I stood very still, clenching my fists tighter as a way to hold myself back. I was fine with Zack disagreeing with me because of something I said or did, but I was simply _not_ fine with him disagreeing with me because of _who_ I was. It wasn't simply unfair - it was wrong.

I raised one finger, pointing it at Zack in condemnation. He tensed a little in his seat, probably getting ready to fight back if I started attacking, but he didn't need to bother.

"I hear you, Zack," I said icily. "I hear you. And, you know what? If that's how you're going to be, if those are the lines you're going to draw, you can take yourself and your goddamn gods, and you can put it all in goddamn _Tartarus_."

Without waiting to hear his response, I turned on my heel and marched out of the amphitheatre.

They probably started talking about me as soon as I'd vanished from sight, but I didn't care. I stomped off in the direction of the cabins, fuming. At that moment, it was very difficult not to view Zack as a reflection of demigods in general. For a few angry seconds, I was tempted to go find Annabeth and tell her what she could do with her damned quest.

After barely a minute, though, I heard a voice calling my name.

"Cyrus! _Cyrus_!"

I slowed, and glanced around, to see Jane hurrying up behind me. She had just emerged from the amphitheatre, and was striding towards me.

Well. Maybe _some_ half-bloods had a sense of decency.

"Hey," she said, as she drew near. "Did you really just say 'goddamn gods'?"

That little, seemingly pointless comment went a long way to giving me perspective. I took a deep breath, and reminded myself that I was really overreacting.

"Uh," I answered. "I think so?"

Jane laughed, drawing level with me. We stood together, near the lake, as I slowly calmed down.

"So what's up?" Jane said, her dark eyes scanning me carefully.

I sighed, feeling a little deflated now the moment had passed. "Oh, you know. People being mean. You probably heard it. Most of camp probably heard it."

"You shouldn't let him get to you," she told me earnestly, putting a hand on my arm. "The way you lose to people like him is by letting your anger win."

I thought about that for a second. Jane wasn't generally someone who spouted wisdom, but that made a lot of sense. Of course Zack wanted me to get mad - it just proved him right, proved that a mortal like me is too much of a wildcard in the world of the gods. If I disliked him all that much, I needed to prove him wrong.

"I guess you're right," I said, with a shrug.

Jane grinned, clapped her hands together, and said, "Of course. When aren't I?"


	7. Chapter Seven

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

><p><span><strong>Piece of Darkness III - Middlegame<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Seven<strong>

* * *

><p><em>The Doctor: You know when grown-ups tell you, 'everything's going to be fine,' and you think they're probably lying to make you feel better?<em>

_Amelia Pond: Yes…_

_The Doctor: Everything's going be fine._

–Doctor Who, 'The Eleventh Hour'

* * *

><p>Sure enough, at breakfast the next morning Chiron announced that Annabeth and her companions had been given clearance to enter the Library of Olympus.<p>

"The gods were reluctant to allow a half-blood to enter the vaults," Chiron said, looking around at us all. "However, when I explained the nature of the son of Chaos' threat, they decided that there was no other alternative."

He paused, waiting for his audience to take that in. Quite a few people looked confused: the full story about the battle with the spectres was trickling through camp, but slowly.

"Annabeth will bring two companions with her," he went on, rubbing his brow. "She chose these people according to her own criteria, without consulting anyone else."

Chiron let that one hang in the air for a moment. Presumably, he didn't want to be the one who got the blame when he announced that I was going. For the first time, I wondered who the other companion was. I hadn't really given it any thought since I'd talked to Annabeth. I would've guessed Percy, but she'd dismissed that as a possibility…

"Those two people are Cyrus Wright and Jane Welles," Chiron declared, finishing a little quickly, as though anxious to put distance between himself and the names of such undesirable quest companions.

There was a vaguely confused silence, just for a moment, as though people weren't quite sure if they'd heard what they thought they'd heard. Heck, it took me a second to actually understand what Chiron had said. Annabeth had chosen _Jane_? The daughter of Nyx had become as good a demigod as any, but she wasn't exactly the first person you'd think of when it came to retrieving arcane artefacts.

I looked across the pavilion, searching for her. Many demigods were frowning, though most did not look angry. I think a large number of them were just trying to remember who this Cyrus Wright guy was. I had been officially introduced to the campers (which was a long time ago now) but I didn't exactly go around getting to know everyone, so many of them had only a very vague concept of my existence.

I noticed a few dark expressions here and there, with some frowns coming in my direction. Zack and a few of his buddies were muttering mutinously amongst each other, but since Annabeth herself was sitting at the Athena table, they didn't speak out.

A number of people, I realised, actually looked quite happy. At first this confused me: did I actually have far more friends at camp than I knew? Then I understood. Jane was friendly with almost everyone, and she seemed to have introduced herself to almost every half-blood alive. As a result, she had a lot of people who supported her, and a whole lot more who wouldn't want to oppose her.

Finally, I found her. She was sitting at her table, her head tilted quizzically to one side as she looked at Chiron. I could understand her surprise - while Jane was certainly streetwise and smart when it came to being in the field, she wasn't really someone who liked to sit down with a good, heavy book. I had no idea why Annabeth was bringing her on this - but knowing the daughter of Athena, there had to be some plan behind it.

"I take it that there are no objections," Chiron said finally. He glanced pointedly at Zack and his knot of rebels, but they didn't return his cool gaze. A few murmurs of assent went around the pavilion, before Chiron went on, "Annabeth and her two companions should report to the Big House in two hours' time. Their preparations for this mission shall be facilitated by all campers."

He sat down, calmly shifting his attention back to finishing his breakfast. I felt a vague pressure across my shoulders, as though something was pressing upon me. I frowned, and glanced around me.

Sure enough, everyone at the Hermes cabin was staring at me as though I'd just fallen down out of the last raincloud.

I grinned.

"So, guys," I said, putting on an air of showmanship, and taking a dramatic sip from my cup, "did I tell you the story of how I defeated the son of Chaos' monstrous army of spectres during the Battle of the Lobby of the Empire State Building?"

* * *

><p>I sat on my bed in the Hermes cabin, getting ready to visit the home of the gods.<p>

The others were all, mercifully, gone to their classes and activities. Telling the dramatic story of the fight against Tartarus' ghosts turned out to be not such a great move, as it had encouraged the Hermes kids to ask as many questions they could possibly think of. You might imagine that the poster children for ADHD wouldn't be able to think up many questions, but that really isn't the case. My throat was still sore.

Anyway, I had another half-hour until it was time to head to the Big House. I didn't have anything else to do, so I was using that time to get my head in order. If there was one thing I'd learned from my experiences in the Underworld, it was the need for mental calm before going into action.

I'd developed a habit, particularly in the last year or two, of picturing the process of setting up a chessboard as I cleared my mind. All my thoughts, questions, doubts and fears were just pieces on the board. It was easy to focus too much on one or two of them, easy to become fixated on a particular issue, but when I set everything out on the board of my mind, things became much clearer.

There was always the chance that I was _over_-preparing, of course. We were only going to the Library of Olympus - it wasn't like we were going on a trip into the pit of Tartarus itself. We were going to go there, get the ritual, and leave. Simple.

Then why did I feel uneasy?

I started going through my pockets. I kept a lot of random things in here, so much so that whenever I was buying jeans, I had to make sure the pockets were awfully deep.

I had my cellphone, which didn't get much use when I was at camp. Only a few demigods had phones: Annabeth had told me that up until a couple years ago, it was too dangerous for half-bloods to have them, because monsters could somehow track the devices if they made a call. More recently, Hephaestus and Athena kids had found a way to make secure phones which couldn't be picked up by any nasties, but most half-bloods were still in the habit of avoiding cellphones.

I put my pens to one side, and sorted through the scraps of paper I always kept handy. Surprisingly, I didn't get many opportunities to use them when I was running around in the world of living legends. Still, you never know when you might need to write something down.

Then there was the old silver dollar Anna Fields had given me the previous summer, not long before I'd left for the Underworld. I'd never used it down there: Tartarus didn't really seem like the kind of guy you could pawn off with a bit of shiny metal. I didn't really have any reason to keep it, but something told me to hold onto it. I guess it would come in handy if I ran into a werewolf or something.

Finally, I came to the two items I'd picked up in the Fields of Silence.

First, there was the piece of labradorite that the spirit of self-knowledge, Amichanos, had given to me. It was such a small, innocuous little thing (like Ami herself, really), but it was unbelievably helpful. I didn't understand how or why it worked, but this small fragment of stone somehow made me calmer and more focussed whenever I held it in my hand. Most usefully, it helped to clarify and steady any use of my pure sight. It often felt like the stone was linking me to the stable power of the spirit herself.

I put that to one side, and paused, staring into space.

There was just one thing left to take out, and it was buried at the bottom of my pocket. It was something which I'd told no-one about - not my parents, not Jane, not even Alice, who'd been there at the Edge of the West when Nico had entrusted it to me.

I didn't know what it was. I didn't know what it meant. I often thought about opening it, but I could never bring myself to do more than hold it. Every time I looked at it, I thought of Nico di Angelo's final instruction.

_"__You need to keep this safe. Promise me. Promise me that you'll never let anyone touch it, or open it, or even see it."_

With those words resounding in my mind, I withdrew the small, grey tin from my pocket.

It was a nondescript object, about the size of a pill box. It was made of two halves that were joined by a brittle-looking hinge. It bore no engravings or inscriptions, and was dulled with age. It was not thick or tall - it was just about big enough to contain my silver dollar.

Far, far more remarkable was its aura. Hardly any inanimate objects have auras, but this had one that rivalled that of a half-blood. It was pitch-black, so dark that it was a shade away from blue. It swathed the entire metal box like a lost storm-cloud, and it seemed to ever-so-slightly depress the space around it. Like the aura of a god, this dark halo bent reality around it, just a little, so that it did not seem to be truly of this world.

I turned it over and over in my hand. Apart from its aura, there was nothing remarkable about this little tin, with neither distinctive weight nor cliched magical hum. It always seemed a little colder than it should be, but outside of that, I couldn't see why or how it was important. To anyone without super-active sight, it would probably seem like a meaningless trinket.

There was always the possibility that it _wasn't_ important, of course. That would be Nico all over, giving someone a bit of random junk and making them think it was a magic box which could save the world. Even now, his ghost could be watching me, laughing at his final joke.

His ghost.

The tin slipped from between my fingers, onto the bed, and I put my head in my hands.

Even I tried to avoid putting it in such stark terms, but that was the reality: Nico was probably dead. Even if Tartarus hadn't killed him instantly, it seemed incredibly unlikely that the son of Chaos would have kept the son of Hades alive for long, considering the insult Nico had paid him by helping Alice and me escape.

It wasn't simply Nico's quick, unstoppable death that troubled me. What scared me was how it could happen to any of us. Nico was one of the strongest half-bloods, probably second only to Percy. If he was such a pushover for Tartarus, what chance did I have? Me, a mortal who had nothing to set him apart from any other, except for a gift of pure sight which he could use to see through illusions, but not to overcome them.

What difference could I possibly make in a battle against such a powerful and remorseless being? It seemed as futile as fighting the wind. Surely I was fooling myself by thinking otherwise.

I tried to calm my mind. I'd thought about this many times, but I always got too caught up in my emotion. For once, I attempted to be more rational. If a person doesn't know what to do, I asked myself, what's the next step? When there's no solid ground before you, where do you walk?

The answer came to me softly and easily, as though it had been waiting for me to look for it.

All I had to do was seek out more information. To know my purpose, I had to know the full details of my situation.

I had to read the _prontos profiteia_ itself. Since that was apparently the prophecy which set out my fate and the fate of Olympus, it was safe to say that it was a pretty important detail. I had to read it myself - maybe then I would understand things.

How the hell I would actually _do_ that was another question entirely.

* * *

><p>I got to the Big House a couple minutes late, having gotten delayed with my brooding. Annabeth and Jane were already there, along with Percy and Clarisse. The four of them stood around on the porch, talking quietly.<p>

As I walked over, I reflected on the very deep difference between them and me. They were _comfortable_ with this: fighting, planning, defending. That was their world, it was part of who they were. Me, on the other hand? I could just about use a knife.

Still, I thought, as I neared the porch steps, if everyone was a hero there'd be nothing to fight over.

"Hi, Cyrus," Annabeth said. She sat next to Jane on the porch seat.

"Hey," I nodded, glancing briefly at each half-blood as they all turned to look at and say hello to me. Jane still bore a slight expression of confusion, as though she'd been told she was actually a daughter of Apollo. Clarisse and Percy both seemed a little disappointed, as though they were unhappy not to be the ones going out into the field.

"Is Chiron here yet?" I asked, moving to lean against the porch railing.

"Not yet," Annabeth said, glancing at the front door of the farmhouse with a frown. "At least, I didn't see him come in."

"Hmm," I nodded vaguely. "So how are we getting into New York?"

"Argus'll drive you," Percy supplied helpfully. He stepped over to stand next to me. "He'll take you right to the doors of the Empire State Building."

"Great," I said drily. "Always wanted to go there. I hear it's a great place to visit this time of year."

We stood around for a while, waiting for the centaur to emerge to send us forth into the world. Percy and Clarisse talked a little, their conversation laden with in-jokes and references to events which only they understood. The most bizarre such reference was when Percy mentioned something about an exploding toilet and Clarisse gave a glare so dark, I thought she was going to literally stick the son of Poseidon's head through the wall.

I drummed my fingers on the porch railing, feeling a little irritated. If Chiron was sending us off on such an important mission, surely he'd have the decency to turn up on time.

As if reading my mind, Annabeth said suddenly, "It's not like Chiron to be so late. This is odd."

She exchanged slightly worried glances with Percy, Jane and I exchanged slightly confused glances, while Clarisse exchanged antagonistic glances with the wall.

"Maybe he's in his office or something," I suggested. "He could have lost track of the time. One of us could go check." I paused for a brief moment to see if anyone would volunteer, then said, "I'll go."

Without waiting for discussion, I marched through the door of the Big House.

I stopped in the hallway, letting the door fall shut behind me. At first it seemed to be quiet, but then the uneven, undulating sounds of people talking started to emerge from the silence. I strained my ears, trying to listen in. It sounded like two voices, and certainly one of them was Chiron. The other sounded familiar, but I couldn't quite place it…

Then Chiron's voice rose, quite abruptly, as though he'd lost patience with the other speaker.

"For Zeus' sake, Xavier, listen to _sense_."

Xavier. That had to be Xavier Graecus, the high priest of the Rheans. I hadn't known he was at camp, though he tended to come and go without too much notice. I edged a few steps forward, quietly.

"You don't understand, Chiron," Xavier's low, deep voice - also raised in anger - replied. "This goes deeper than you realise."

Behind me, I heard Percy's voice, suddenly growing nearer.

"—go check," he said as he pushed open the door. I whirled around and leapt across the floor towards him, pressing one finger urgently to my lips. His green eyes widened, but he said nothing, and stepped into the hall silently, easing the door shut.

"What is it?" he whispered, staring at me in alarm. One hand went into his pocket, no doubt for Riptide.

"Shh," I hissed, pointing with one finger towards the ceiling. "Don't move. Listen."

"I think it is you who does not have all the facts, Xavier," Chiron said, his tone now growing cold. It was strange to hear him so angry. There was a slight shifting noise, as though the centaur was moving across the room. "You do not appreciate the danger this ritual presents."

Percy's eyes widened, and he started to speak, but I motioned frantically for silence. He put a hand over his mouth, nodding apologetically.

"The ritual presents no danger," came Xavier's voice, much colder than the centaur's. "Only misuse can make it a weapon."

There was a pause. Perhaps the two of them were staring at each, trying to see which one was telling the full truth.

"You really believe that," I heard Chiron say finally. "You do. But you're wrong."

"_No_," was Xavier's reply. He sounded a little muffled, as though he was talking through clenched teeth. "You need to stop what you're doing, and you need to surrender the ritual to me. Only I and my fellow followers of Rhea can use it correctly."

There was a hint of a laugh in Chiron's voice when he said, "You can't be serious, Xavier. Surely you understand that this is impossible. A decoy of the ritual is our only chance."

"You have no _chance_," Xavier replied scornfully. "All anyone can hope to do is delay the Pit King's rise, and you do not have the knowledge to do even that."

There was another moment of silence, during which Percy and I stared at each other in total bewilderment. This conversation made no sense at all.

"I'm not giving you the ritual, Xavier," Chiron said, more quietly, almost regretfully. "I can't."

Another pause, but I could feel something building in the silence, a tension growing in the exchange.

"Very well," Xavier said, his voice growing louder, his tone growing darker. "You follow your orders, centaur, follow them as you have always done. I know you are wise, and I know that you have seen much, but this time your judgement is poor. The path you choose will lead only to disaster, I know it, and I am offering you a way out."

Chiron said nothing. I could well imagine the steely glare he was giving the Rhean priest. The centaur wasn't one to easily change his mind.

"I see," Xavier growled. "You have chosen your path. Do not seek my help when you fail."

The sharp, swift sound of sudden movement broke the surface of quiet that had enveloped the farmhouse. I looked at Percy with alarm, and he moved to open the door, but Xavier was already charging down the stairs. I turned towards him, half-expecting him to attack us or strike us down with a curse.

The Rhean priest seemed not to even notice us, however, but merely swept down the hall imperiously. The hem of his long robe fluttered around his feet, and his steely grey aura was whirling around him like a tornado. He walked with great purpose and authority, and his angry gaze lent him even more gravitas. Instinctively, Percy and I stepped out of his way, and he strode out the door and down the porch with neither a backwards nor sideways glance.

The others stared at him with unease and confusion as he stormed off towards Half-Blood Hill, but my attention was distracted by more sounds coming from behind. A moment later, Chiron trotted down the stairs, his expression deeply troubled. When he reached the hallway, he glanced up to see Percy and me watching him warily.

Chiron sighed, and tried to smile.

"Nothing is ever easy around here, is it?" he said ruefully.


	8. Chapter Eight

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

><p><span><strong>Piece of Darkness III - Middlegame<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Eight<strong>

* * *

><p><em>Below me was Manhattan, from the height of an aeroplane. In front of me, white marble steps wound up the spine of a cloud, into the sky. My eyes followed the stairway to its end, where my brain just could not accept what I saw.<em>

_Look again, my brain said._

_We're looking, my eyes insisted. It's really there._

–Rick Riordan, 'Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief'

* * *

><p>Things were starting to get a bit predictable. For the second time in a week, I was heading for the Empire State Building.<p>

Annabeth, Jane and I were on the camp's minibus, being driven into New York City by the many-eyed head of security, Argus. I couldn't help thinking that it was pretty energy-inefficient to have a whole minibus just for us three, but I didn't dare say this to our driver. There was something about the guy that made it incredibly difficult to argue with him, though I couldn't say exactly what…

We'd left camp only a few minutes after Xavier Graecus had stormed out of the Big House. I had no idea where he'd actually gone: he'd just strode over Half-Blood Hill and vanished from sight. Maybe those Rheans dudes had their own arcane means of transport.

Unsurprisingly, Chiron hadn't been exactly handing out the details of the argument with Xavier. He'd offhandedly murmured something about having difficulty working out a new peace agreement, before quickly hurrying us out of camp. Percy and I had exchanged meaningfully puzzled stares while saying goodbye to one another, and Annabeth had watched Chiron carefully as the bus pulled out and drove off.

With a lack of information, then, it naturally fell to the three of us to discuss the curious case of the Rhean and the ritual.

"But what could Chiron be getting wrong about it?" Jane asked, not for the first time. She sat next to me. "He's _Chiron_. He knows, like, _everything_."

"No-one knows everything," Annabeth said immediately, shaking her head. She sat in the seat in front of us. "Not even the gods, not even the primordial entities."

"And certainly not Xavier," I pointed out, glancing out the window. I'd managed to get the window side of the seat before Jane could claim it. "I'm hardly going to put more faith in him than in Chiron."

The bus rocked a little, shaking us from side to side in our seats. We were close to the edge of New York City, but the roads were still bumpy. The distinctive skyline of the metropolis was coming into view in the near distance.

"Anyway, what do you think he'll do now?" Jane asked, looking from me to Annabeth, and back again. "Xavier, I mean."

"What _can_ he do?" the daughter of Athena shrugged, as she took out her knife and began cleaning it. "They're not going to allow him into Olympus Library. He'll have to go back to Rhea and hope she doesn't incinerate him."

That cheerful thought put a bit of a pause on the conversation.

I stared out the window, looking at the sky. It was a bright, clear day, with nothing to be seen in the blue expanse other than the lingering white-grey chalk marks of jet trails. The sun's warm light seemed to fill everything, making the blue clearer, making the very air seem purer. The snow was starting to thaw, and though it was still very cold, it seemed as if the world was having an early spring. It was easy, looking upwards, to think that there was no such thing as darkness.

But I remembered, as I looked away, that with all light there comes a darkness. After all, everything casts a shadow.

Annabeth had paused in her knife-cleaning. She sat frowning, chewing the nails of one hand.

"What is it?" I asked her.

"Oh," she looked over her shoulder at me with an unsure gaze. "I'm just thinking… what if Chiron _is_ wrong? What then? He could be. We don't know without any doubt, do we?""

"Um…" I said slowly, glancing sidelong at Jane, who was looking frustrated at these complications. The daughter of Nyx didn't really do lack of clarity or shades of grey. "I can tell you're thinking positively."

"But it's true," Annabeth said darkly, rubbing her brow. "Mistakes can be made. No-one gets everything right."

Jane and I exchanged uncertain glances.

"You're right," the daughter of Nyx said, shrugging. "But it's pointless thinking like that. Everyone gets stuff wrong, so the best thing we can do is listen to the people who generally get it right. I think that's all anyone can do."

Annabeth nodded, looking a little - but not fully - reassured. She went back to polishing her already-shining blade.

Our surroundings had been growing increasingly cosmopolitan for the last half-hour, and now the buildings seemed to be leaping higher and higher into the sky as we neared Manhattan. A sense of contentment crept into me as we came towards the bridge. I liked the quiet scenery of places like Camp Half-Blood, but at heart I was a NYC kid. Many people found the skyscrapers, the cars and the shops too cold, too concretised, but to me it was as homely as a roaring fire.

Though maybe it wasn't so much the place as the people in it.

As the bus crept over the bridge - slowed by the ever-present traffic - Annabeth turned to me, rather suddenly, as though she'd just remembered something.

"When we get onto Olympus," she said, looking at me steadily, "don't talk too much."

"What do you mean?" I said, frowning back at her.

"You know," she answered, tilting her head. "You tend to talk a lot at bad moments. That's okay at camp, when Mr. D can't do anything worse than turn you into a dolphin—"

"Because that's so much fun," Jane muttered.

"—but here on Olympus, the gods won't permit any insult," Annabeth ploughed on. "Some of them aren't too harsh, but if you look at the wrong god the wrong way, you'll be lucky if you end up as a pile of dust. You're a mortal, too, so they don't have to worry about getting a godly parent mad."

"Um," I said, feeling more than a little alarmed. It was bad enough having evil lunatics to fight, but worrying about upsetting our "allies" just seemed ridiculous. "Okay. I'll try not to make anyone kill me."

I didn't look at Jane, but I could hear her making a poor attempt to hold back her laughter. Annabeth quirked an eyebrow, but maintained her solemn, child-of-Athena poise.

"You'd better," she said, turning away. "I hate dusting."

* * *

><p>It took more time to travel the short distance between the bridge and the Empire State Building than it had to get all the way from camp to New York City. I amend what I said: New York is great, so long as you don't get stuck in traffic.<p>

We disembarked at the bottom of Fifth Avenue. Argus beeped his horn in what was probably meant to be an encouraging fashion, before vanishing back into the grinding morass of city traffic. Annabeth's doom-laden warning was still bouncing around my head like a beach-ball-shaped gravestone, so I couldn't help feeling rather forsaken as I watched the back of the bus slip away.

We made our way down the street. I wondered, as we went along, if any of the mortals had even wondered why there'd been roadblocks up on Fifth Avenue the other day. It seemed unlikely, considering how single-mindedly self-obsessed most people tend to be.

The doors of the Empire State Building didn't _look_ like they'd had a demigod thrown through them. Presumably the half-bloods had patched things up, because there was no way that the mortals would have fixed the damage that fast.

I realised that I'd started thinking of normal people as "mortals", the way demigods thought of me as mortal. I laughed out loud.

"What is it?" Jane asked, looking around us with apprehension.

"Oh, nothing," I muttered. "It's just funny how times change."

Annabeth took the lead as we neared the doors, walking a few steps ahead. She was the first in, leading us across the lobby with an air of confident familiarity. Jane and I followed, a little uncertainly. I knew that Olympus was somehow on top of the Building, but I had only a vague idea of how we actually got up there. I just prayed that it didn't involve climbing up the side of the building or something.

"We go up in the elevators, right?" Jane said to me, gesturing at the elevator doors where Kevin and I had made our last stand against the spectres.

"Uh, yeah, I think so," I nodded. Those doors were now surrounded by camera- and pamphlet-laden tourists. I wondered if we'd be bringing them up to Olympus, too. We'd certainly cause some confusion - somehow, I didn't think "Olympus: Home Of The Gods" was in the brochure or on the tourist trail.

(Can you imagine what would happen if the travel agencies found out about the gods being real? Overnight, Olympus would be overrun with gloriously unimpressed Europeans, loudly amazed Californians and scientifically intrigued Chinese.)

Annabeth headed for the main desk, where a bored-looking man was answering the pedantic questions of tourists with an air of resigned irritation that seemed to be as much a part of the job as his uniform. He seemed to know exactly what the tourists were going to ask long before they had even conceived the questions in their own minds. Sometimes he offered the answer a moment before the tourists were ready to ask for it, which usually led to confusion, which caused the tourists to revert to the start of their daisy-chain of queries.

Eventually, the tourists were satisfied that they were, in fact, standing in the Empire State Building, and they trooped off towards the elevators, as serious and as carefully organised as an Arctic expedition. The three of us approached the desk, with Annabeth a couple of steps in front.

"Hi," she said, as the man took up a book from the inside of the desk and searched for his place in it. "We're looking to go to the six-hundredth floor."

"There's no six-hundre—" he started to say automatically, before glancing up. He stopped, and his expression shifted a little as he recognised Annabeth.

"Ah," he said, putting the book down and opening a drawer in the desk. "How are you today, Ms. Chase?"

Jane and I exchanged amused glances. I wondered how many times the daughter of Athena had been through here.

"I'm good," Annabeth nodded, glancing over her shoulder to make sure that no tourists were eavesdropping. "We're on our way to Olympus Library."

The man paused in surprise, just for a nanosecond, before nodding, as though it was only to be expected that Annabeth was visiting the top-secret ancient library of the gods. Then, he withdrew a small, nondescript key-card from the drawer, and handed it to Annabeth.

"There you are," he said, already going back to his book. "Have a good day."

"Thank you," Annabeth replied, expertly flicking the card from finger to finger. She led us over to the only elevator door by which no-one lingering expectantly, and pressed the button.

As we waited for the elevator to come down, Jane said quietly, "Not exactly the most sophisticated security system, is it? He just let you right through."

"Oh, he knows me," Annabeth said, looking amused. "I've been here a lot."

For the first time, it struck me how relaxed the daughter of Athena was about visiting the home of the gods. I knew she was an experienced half-blood, but surely even she would feel a little nervous about this? Just how many times _had_ she been here?

With a ping, the doors slid open. The elevator was mercifully empty, and we stepped in. Annabeth waited for the doors to close before sliding the key-card into a almost-unnoticeable slot at the bottom of the control panel. Jane and I watched eagerly as the card melted into thin air, and a red button faded into view on the console, just above the slot. The number _600_ was emblazoned on the button in spindly golden writing. Annabeth pressed it.

"We got a little lucky today," Annabeth informed us, as the elevator began to move upwards. "I remember one time, it took five trips up and down before the elevator was empty. It was torture. Tour groups were getting in and out constantly. If I heard the word _wow_ one more time, I was going to take everyone up to Olympus and just throw them off."

Muzak played dimly. It served to emphasise the complete lack of drama in our journey so far. When I thought of Mount Olympus, I pictured trekking up a vast mountain, facing trials of strength and will, overcoming terrifying obstacles and bypassing legendary guardians. This, on the other hand, felt like I was paying a visit to a paranoid banker.

As though she was reading my mind, Jane said suddenly, "It's not much, is it? I mean, it's pretty understated, by the gods' standards."

We both looked at Annabeth, who was leaning against the wall, her arms crossed. She didn't meet our inquisitive gazes, but raised her eyebrows knowingly, and murmured, "Say that again in a few minutes."

Jane scratched her head at this, looking confused. For the first time since we'd left camp, I began to feel a little excited: perhaps our mundane journey had a rather more spectacular endpoint.

The moment I thought that, the elevator stopped abruptly. My stomach had barely enough time to settle back into place when the doors swept open with an almost gratuitous _swoosh_.

It took a long moment for my eyes to adjust, for my mind to begin to process what I was seeing, and for my mouth to catch up with everything, and even then all I could muster was, "Woah,"

Annabeth stepped out of the elevator, her arms still folded, her expression supremely nonchalant. Jane and I stumbled out after her, disorientated.

"Yeah," the daughter of Athena said, sounding amused. "_Woah_ pretty much covers it."

We were standing on a narrow walkway made from purest white stone, and it was literally floating in mid-air. The roofs and spires of New York were impossibly far below us, and none of the sounds of the city could be heard. A series of marble steps snaked onwards and upwards into the air ahead of us, making a literal stairway in the sky.

That was pretty astounding all by itself, but what rose up at the end of the stairway made our little floating walkway seem hopelessly unimaginative.

The whole top of a _mountain_ was floating in the air, with no visible support, at the end of the marble steps. It was clearly just a mountain_top_, but it looked massive enough to be called a mountain by itself. Its sides were adorned by countless palaces, churches, monuments and shrines. Many of them were huge structures, constructed with great detail, but they were made to seem as tiny as toy houses by the vastness of Mount Olympus itself. Beneath the huge mount, empty space stretched outwards and downwards, but the seat of the gods seemed entirely unconcerned with the petty suggestions of gravity.

It wasn't simply the mountaintop that was impressive - it was the sheer amount of _stuff_ covering it, Roads snaked around and up the slopes. Some areas of buildings looked a little disordered, as though they'd been constructed without any specific plan, but other, larger sections looked orderly and methodically-arranged. The largest palace of all stood at the summit, glittering in the sunlight like a white jewel. I didn't need to know much about Greek mythology to guess that that was the throne room of the Olympians themselves.

"It's unbelievable," I breathed, finally regaining coherency.

"Incredible," Jane murmured, sounding totally overwhelmed.

"Well, thank you," Annabeth said cheerfully.

We both looked at her in confusion.

"What?" she said, arching an eyebrow. "Didn't anyone tell you? I designed it - well, most of it. Come on."

She began striding up the marble steps, and the two of us gaped after her for a moment, before realising that it would be a good idea to follow.

"I thought the whole "Annabeth Chase: Architect of Olympus" thing was just a myth," Jane muttered to me, her dark eyebrows crumpled as we began scurrying up the physics-denying staircase.

"Me, too," I said, shaking my head. "Then again, Olympus is meant to be a myth, too. I'm beginning to think that pretty much everything is up for grabs."

Annabeth walked up the sky-staircase with confidence, but Jane and I were rather less carefree. I don't have any particular fear of heights, but there's something about being able to see most of New York City stretched out beneath you that encourages caution and discourages speed. The walkway was wide enough, sure, but it's amazing the way a marble block about half the size of a tennis court can seem really tiny when you're floating above airplane height.

As a result, Annabeth reached the end of the stairs far sooner than us. She stood looking back at us with faint amusement.

"Come on!" she called, waving her hands at us to hurry up. "You'll be fine, and anyway, even if you _do_ fall, you won't die!"

"Oh really?" Jane called back, woefully unconvinced. She was a few metres behind me, because she took a brief pause every few steps to assure herself that she hadn't plunged to her death.

"Yeah," Annabeth shouted reassuringly, putting her hands on her hips. "Anyone who falls from these steps will fall forever. It's part of Olympus' security system."

"Why does that make me feel _worse_?" Jane muttered to me darkly.

I glanced uneasily down into the beyond. I couldn't _see_ anything falling through the air below us, but then maybe it was enchanted. Who knew, perhaps there was countless things and people falling through the abyss beneath that bridge, all of them contained in little pocket dimensions, not one of them aware of the other.

I have such a morbid imagination.

"Does that mean," I asked, as we finally reached Annabeth, who was tapping her foot impatiently, "that if you fall there, you could be saved? Could someone get to you and bring you back?"

She frowned, and cast a doubtful glance downwards, considering my question as Jane caught up with us.

"It's certainly possible," she said finally, turning away from the edge, "but I don't think it's ever been done."

The sky-staircase ended at a wide, paved road, which wound its way upwards, in between palaces and shrines. It went right up Olympus, ending only at the throne room, and many smaller roads and avenues branched off along the way. Those breakaway streets then had tributary paths of their own. All in all, the place seemed like one hell of a labyrinth.

"So how are we going to find our way to the Library?" I asked Annabeth, who was chewing her thumbnail with an air of uncharacteristic uncertainty.

"Er," she muttered, her grey eyes flicking from building to building. "We have to get to my mother's workshop. The only problem is…"

She trailed off, and with a sinking feeling I realised that for once, the daughter of Athena didn't know something important.

"How can you not know where your own mother's workshop is?" Jane asked, throwing up her hands exasperatedly. "It's not like you're unfamiliar with the place."

"It's a long story," Annabeth said evasively, turning around on the spot and craning her neck, as though that would make a magical, glowing signpost materialise. "There was an accident, my mother had to move her workshop, and I never actually found out where she put it."

"Wow," Jane said, shaking her head. "What happened?"

Annabeth replied in a mutter, so I couldn't quite hear what she said, but I did catch the words _accident_,_ badly-trained construction spirit_, and _broken roof_.

"So what are we supposed to do now?" I asked, as Jane sighed darkly and Annabeth got increasingly uncomfortable-looking.

"We need a guide," the daughter of Athena replied, after a moment of thought and glaring around. "But who could—?"

"Perhaps I can be of assistance," a clear, quiet female voice said suddenly, from further up the street.

We all looked around in surprise. On either side of the road, there were a number of imposing shrines to various Olympians, but there wasn't a soul in sight. The speaker couldn't be seen - unless, you know, one of the walls had started talking.

(Which, by this stage, wouldn't really have surprised me.)

Then, a figure stepped out from the doorway of a smaller white building, on our left. It was the third shrine down from where we stood, but I hadn't noticed it until now because it was four or five storeys shorter than the structures that surrounded it.

The figure stepped down onto the road, and moved towards us. Immediately I could see that she was a goddess - the space-bending aura which surrounded her made that pretty darn clear. She appeared to be a ten- or eleven-year-old girl, but you didn't have to see her aura to realise she was no ordinary mortal child: you only had to look at her eyes.

Or rather, the warm, bright flames that flickered in place of her eyes.

My mouth dropped open slowly, and I heard Jane take in a long, startled breath. Trying not to openly stare, I looked closer, letting my pure sight kick in. It should have been a very disconcerting sight, but the flames that took the place of this goddess's eyes were not as disturbing as you'd expect. As I looked at her fire-eyes, a sense of reassurance washed over me, a sense of safety so strong that I almost felt like I already knew this goddess personally. Her red-gold aura helped, too - it was calm and full of warm, softly moving energy, flowing over and around her, emphatically present but not aggressively so.

I realised that while I'd been staring, Annabeth and Jane had bowed their heads. After a moment of hesitation, I did the same. The goddess that looked like a child came to a halt a couple of steps away, surveying us. Annabeth murmured something, probably the name of this strange creature, but I didn't quite catch it.

"It's always good to see you, Annabeth," she said, her voice as reassuring as a hot dinner on a winter's night. "I know why you're here. Athena sent me to meet you."

I'd raised my head as she'd been talking, feeling strangely compelled to consider this goddess further. She looked at me directly now, her flame-eyes making her expression hard to read.

"Excuse me," I said quietly. "But… who are you?"

"I am an Olympian of whom you won't have heard much," she replied, with an easy smile. "I am called many things: the hearth, the fireside, the virgin, the last Olympian, but you, Cyrus Wright, shall call me Hestia."


	9. Chapter Nine

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

><p><span><strong>Piece of Darkness III - Middlegame<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Nine<strong>

* * *

><p><em>"I know who Thor is. I met him at a party once."<em>

–Eoin Colfer, 'And Another Thing'

* * *

><p>Hestia led us through the maze of godly edifices that covered Olympus like an architectural rash. The place had more abnormally white marble, obscenely ornate architecture, narcissistically detailed sculptures and gratuitously imposing porticos than probably all the museums in the world put together. It was almost certainly the largest collection of pointlessly overdramatic cultural objects and buildings in existence.<p>

It was a miracle that they'd managed to keep the tourists away.

It was very impressive, but it all seemed unnecessary. I couldn't understand the point of having massive shrines and temples dedicated to all these gods if there was no-one around who'd bother to pop in for a bit of worshipping. There was some people on Olympus, but all of them seemed to be minor gods or spirits. It seemed pretty unlikely that they'd be worshipping anyone except themselves, so all the temples surely had less footfall than a liquor store in Vatican City.

Annabeth informed me, however, that it was all symbolic.

"It's not about the shrines being used," she explained, as we passed a particularly ostentatious statue of an impossibly muscular man wielding what looked suspiciously like a sheaf of wheat. "Olympus is the very centre of Greek mythology, so any being with even a drop of ichor in their veins will want to have a temple here. Having a dedicated building isn't an incidental detail, it's a representation of status."

I understood that, even if it still sounded awfully narcissistic and superficial.

Jane did not seem to be as impressed by the grandeur as I was. Her expression grew increasingly sour as we progressed along, as though the bright whiteness of the place was a personal offence to her Nyxian sensibilities.

"What do you think of it all?" I asked her quietly, after we had turned off the central road.

"I don't know. It just seems like too _much_," was her reply.

Hestia walked a few steps ahead of the three of us, not talking much. Every now and then I'd draw level with her, and glance at her, eagerly but cautiously. There was something about her that drew me in a little, but I couldn't tell why. Compared to other Olympians I'd seen, there was nothing about her which was especially intriguing or imposing. There was her powerful aura, true, but I'd seen a far more dramatic aura around Hades.

Finally, I concluded that it was just down to the air of pure reassurance that emanated from the goddess. Hestia seemed deeply accepting, as though there was nobody who she would not welcome if they came in good faith.

The temples began to grow smaller as Hestia led us down narrower roads. The shrines along the main roads were dedicated to the major gods, but here they were mainly for minor deities. A larger building towered at the end of the street, and I expected Hestia to lead us there, but she turned down an alleyway which I hadn't even noticed. The path ran between two buildings, ending at a polished steel door set into a stone wall.

"She really hates visitors," Annabeth murmured, as we drew near to the door.

"What's that?" Hestia asked, glancing over her shoulder.

"I was thinking," Annabeth said, more loudly, "that my mother really must hate visitors to put her workshop so far out of the way."

Hestia laughed. "She put it here because Apollo learned that mortal song… oh, what was it called? Gangnam Style. He kept appearing at her old workshop in the strangest outfits, performing a completely bizarre dance, so she had no choice but to move."

I shook my head. The Olympians were obviously as childish as the legends suggested.

Hestia knocked lightly upon the steel door. The metal rang with a strangely high note - almost like a bell ringing. The light reflecting off the polished surface seemed to dim a little.

"Athena couldn't decide if it's more functional for people to knock on the door or ring a doorbell," Hestia informed us, glancing over her shoulder again, her eyebrows raised in amusement. "She settled for both."

I looked at Annabeth out of the corner of my eye. That sure sounded like something she would do.

After a brief pause, the door swung open silently - by itself, naturally. No-one stood behind it, but I had a strong suspicion that Athena could see us anyway.

"Come," Hestia said, stepping inside. We followed her.

When Hestia had said "workshop", I'd expected a cosy little place, with a few desks, graphs, computer terminals, and other various intellectual accoutrements - maybe a few mythological trinkets thrown in to keep up the whole godly image thing.

Athena's workshop was like that, except multiplied by a thousand. The room itself was probably only a little longer than your average warehouse, and the architecture was very simple - it was essentially an extremely long corridor, no more than forty foot wide.

The amount of _stuff_ was the really impressive thing. The walls were plastered with enough papers and computers screens to supply NASA for the next twenty years. Countless desks, workstations and shelving units were lined up along the walls, which stretched out on either side. At first glance, everything seemed hopelessly disordered, but as I looked closer, I realised that everything was organised according to subject. All the screens displaying three-dimensional maps of Olympus and its surrounds, for instance, were clustered together in one area of the wall directly opposite from us.

"Well," Jane said disbelievingly, as we stepped further in, the door shutting behind us.

"There's so _much_," I murmured, staring around. "It must have taken centuries to gather all this."

"Oh, no," a cool voice said suddenly, to our right, "I threw it together a few years ago."

We all looked around.

I was a little disconcerted at first, because the goddess looked confusingly similar to Annabeth: same hair, same eyes, same build. The only immediate indications that I was looking at Athena, goddess of wisdom, were the powerful grey aura, and the intense gaze that put me in mind of an ancient owl.

She'd been sitting just behind the door at a small oak desk, hidden from view until the door had closed. The goddess stood up now, surveying us with mercilessly penetrating grey eyes.

"Hestia," Athena said, bowing her head at the elder goddess. "Thank you for bringing the visitors here. Could you wait a few moments? I will need you to escort the heroes to the Library itself."

"Certainly," Hestia nodded. She turned away, and strolled off down the workshop, glancing at various screens with interest. I eyed her for a moment, before turning back to Athena.

The goddess stood with her hands clasped behind her back, considering us silently. The three of us were standing in a line, just a few feet away from Athena, and I couldn't help feeling like I was being inspected by a celestial schoolmaster.

I considered Athena's aura as she surveyed us. Like the auras of all the gods, it seemed to exert a pressure on the space around her, as though the Olympian's mere presence made a dent in reality. Her aura was more monochrome than any other godly one I'd seen, but it somehow seemed more free-flowing. It swirled and eddied like an ocean, flowing about the goddess distractingly. Some auras have emotions closely attached to them, but all I felt when I looked at Athena's was a cool, calm sense of reason.

Finally, she spoke.

"Annabeth," she said, meeting her daughter's eyes. "You are here for the ritual?"

"Yes," Annabeth answered promptly - almost nervously. I looked from Athena to her daughter. The half-blood was not someone who generally looked doubtful, but right now she seemed unsure, as though she felt uncertain of her ability to answer any question that Athena might throw at her.

"This is your first visit to the Library, I believe?" the Olympian went on, her eyes flicking briefly to a screen behind us, before returning to Annabeth.

"That's right."

For the first time, Athena glanced at me directly. Her expression was a little doubtful, but not disdainful or distrustful. I kept very still as she examined me, and the time seemed to stretch out, before she turned her gaze to Jane. The daughter of Nyx was standing within a few inches of me, and I sensed her stiffen, though whether in unease or something else, I couldn't tell.

After another, longer moment, Athena nodded, and turned her back on us.

"You chose useful companions," she said, obviously to Annabeth, as she opened a drawer in the desk. "I'm quite certain that you will successfully recover the ritual."

Jane started to draw in breath, as though about to say something, but I looked at her sharply to discourage her. She stopped, and nodded at me apologetically.

"Thank you," Annabeth said carefully, sounding a little surprised. "Is there, um, anything you can do to help us obtain it?"

"Well, I hardly sent Hestia to herd you all here just so that I could have a nice chat about my latest architectural modelling system," Athena said, somehow managing to be both terse and humorous, as she turned back to us. In one hand she held what looked like a typical travel brochure. She offered it to Annabeth, who stepped forward cautiously, but curiously, to take it.

Annabeth held it up so that Jane and I could see it.

"Olympus Library: a collection of wonderful sights unlike anything ever previously seen by mortal eyes," Jane read aloud, in a doubtful tone. Forgetting to pretend to be respectful, she glanced up at Athena and asked, "Since when does the Library that no-one ever visits have its own _brochure_?"

Athena shrugged, seemingly unbothered by Jane's lack of decorum. "Everything of importance must be recorded," she said, folding her arms, "and everything is expressed in a suitable form. Since Olympus resides in America, information such as this is presented in a form suitable to this land. Travel brochures," she glanced at the leaflet, and wrinkled her nose a little, "are rather popular throughout the United States."

I was sorely tempted to say something like, _wow, are they really?,_ but I prefer to avoid incurring the wrath of a goddess who had probably figured out the easiest way to kill me about two seconds after laying eyes on me.

"In any case," Athena went on, frowning fiercely. (I got the feeling that she didn't really like being drawn off-topic.) "The Library has its own particular form of magic. You do not simply stroll in and use the Dewey Decimal System to find what you are looking for."

"Why?" Jane asked, arching one eyebrow. "Have you guys got something against doing things systematically or something?"

I winced. That probably wasn't the best thing to say to the goddess of _strategy_. Annabeth immediately started to say something placatory, but Athena cut her off with a raised hand.

"You make a valid point, Ms. Welles," she said, looking only a little annoyed. "However, the organisational system used in the Library was not designed, it is a product of the Library's very contents."

Jane and I stared at her blankly, but Annabeth nodded slowly, as if this made total sense.

"Of course," the demigod said. "So many powerful and symbolically important texts in one place will naturally create a unique location of magical anomalies. The energies shrouding each book, scroll and artefact will interact and combine to create certain unique arcane phenomena."

"Oh," I said, barely comprehending all that.

"I'll take your word for it," Jane muttered.

"You don't need to understand why it works this way," Athena said, checking her watch. Presumably, long expositions hadn't been scheduled for this appointment. "You just need to know how it works. The Library is empathetic. This means that it will naturally guide you to what you wish to obtain. You will inevitably find what you seek. However, if you do not specify, in your mind, the item you need to find, the Library will lead you to a section which pertains to whatever aimless thoughts happen to be at the forefront of your disorderly mortal subconsciouses."

I nodded, taking that in while ignoring the insult. It reminded me a lot of the Fields of Silence, and the way we'd been able to think our way to where we wanted to go.

(Well. Sort of.)

"I understand," Annabeth said, stuffing the brochure into her pocket. "Do I need to know anything else?"

"One other thing," Athena replied. She paused, rubbing her brow thoughtfully. I glanced up the workshop at Hestia: she was standing still, her hands buried deep in her jeans, as she stared pensively at what looked like a diagram of an overly sophisticated toasting fork.

"I need all three of you," Athena said, her tone turning a little sterner, "to remember that the Library is not your typical mortal archive. Many of the items in this place could destroy you if you so much as touch them. None of you, no matter how curious you are, should even _consider_ going near any item other than that which you seek."

"Sure," Annabeth said agreeably.

"Absolutely," I nodded. I'd been expecting this kind of warning ever since I'd first heard about the Library.

"I wouldn't dream of it," Jane smiled, somewhat unconvincingly.

We all nodded earnestly at the goddess, before exchanging similarly earnest glances. We were probably all wondering how long it would take before one of us ended up breaking Athena's instruction.

"Good," she said. Her emphatically neutral tone made it clear that she found us as convincing as a politician's pre-election promise. "You'd better get moving."

She looked over our heads, and called, "Hestia! May I ask one more favour?"

The older goddess glanced up from an ancient-looking notebook, and nodded. She strolled back to us, still looking almost like a normal twelve-year-old.

I wondered, in this spare moment, what looking at gods was like for people who didn't have my pure sight. Being able to see auras made things easy for me because I always remembered exactly who (and what) I was talking to. Most people - even demigods - had no such luxury.

It occurred to me, too, that my sight meant I'd never be fooled by that old, reliable trick favoured by the gods in the myths: the old "pretend to be a normal human" con.

"Information on how to enter the Library is in the leaflet," Athena told her daughter, as the older goddess neared. "Hestia will take you there now."

I wondered why Athena wasn't taking us there herself. Surely, as goddess of wisdom, she would be eager to help us find something as obscure and important as the Ritual of the Pit? I looked at her closely, trying to read her expression. There was something in the Olympian's eyes, something I hadn't noticed before. It wasn't anger or fear, but some more subtle emotion. I glanced at Annabeth, who was eyeing Athena also.

Then I realised, with a sense of strange unease, that the goddess was not quite meeting her child's eyes.

"Where am I bringing the tour group now?" Hestia said drily, as she came to a stop in between us and Athena. "You know, maybe I ought to get a job at this."

"I need you to take them to Olympus Library," Athena replied, managing to look respectful even while looking down at Hestia, who was considerably shorter than the battle goddess. "You don't need to accompany them into the Library itself, of course."

Hestia nodded. "Certainly."

Athena turned, and opened her workshop door.

"Good luck to you," she said briskly, talking to us all without looking at anyone in particular. "Return here when you have obtained the ritual."

"Thank you," Annabeth replied, nodding respectfully. She stepped through the door, followed by Hestia. Jane went next, glancing uncertainly at Athena as she went, as though unsure of whether or not to speak. Finally, I moved to follow.

As I passed Athena, who was still holding the door, I glanced up at her for a tiny moment. For only the second time, our gazes met. I looked her in the eye for no more than the time it takes to blink, but that was time enough. I realised what that other subtle emotion was, the quiet flutter of feeling that hid beneath the goddess's emphatically cool aura of logic. It wasn't anger, or fear, or even pride.

It was doubt.

We headed back up the alleyway, but after only a second, Athena's voice came after us.

"Annabeth," she called, oddly urgent.

We paused, looking back. Annabeth turned around fully to look back at her mother.

"Yes?" she said, her eyebrows raised.

Athena peered out at us, looking strangely alone at the door of her workshop.

"Make sure," she said quietly, "that you remember to close the door."

And with that cryptic advice, she swung her own door shut.

* * *

><p>Despite being a three-thousand-year-old mythological goddess who had probably seen enough of Olympus to be cosmically sick of it, Hestia derived great enjoyment from guiding the three of us to the Library.<p>

"See there?" she said cheerfully, pointing at a defaced statue of Zeus. "Hera vandalised that when she heard about Zeus' last affair. She told him that every time he had a half-blood child, she'd wreck one of his statues here on Olympus. He hasn't sired a soul since."

Jane and I laughed, but Annabeth asked knowingly, "When did that happen?"

"Last week."

I didn't get a chance to tell Annabeth about that doubt I'd seen in her mother's eyes, because she spent most of the walk studying the Library brochure. Perhaps it was better that way - telling the leader of our little mission that the goddess of wisdom seemed uncertain of our course of action probably wouldn't help matters.

I did, however, tell Jane.

"What did you think of Athena?" I asked her, in a slightly hushed tone. The two of us were hanging back a little, while Hestia and Annabeth led the way.

"She's a lot like Annabeth, only older," Jane said, tilting her head thoughtfully. "Very schoolmistress-ish."

"I thought she seemed a little odd," I said slowly. I didn't come right out with what I'd seen, because there was always the chance that I was wrong. If I was right, Jane would have surely picked up on Athena's uncertainty herself.

"There was definitely something off," the daughter of Nyx nodded, with unerring surety. "I was almost expecting her to tell us that we weren't allowed into the Library."

My heart sank a little at this. If the goddess of strategy really was uneasy about our plan, what hope did we have?

"I don't think Athena is happy with what we're doing," I said, more quietly. "Don't you think it's strange that she isn't coming with us?"

"She's probably just busy…" Jane said doubtfully.

A cluster of green-auraed nature spirits turned onto the road and came chattering towards us. We all stopped and stepped to one side to let them pass. Hestia waved to a few of them familiarly.

"Athena is an major_ deity_," I pointed out, as we moved on. "She sets her own schedule. If she wanted to come with us, she would. No, something's up. I don't know what, but I can guess."

"She doesn't want to associate herself with something she doesn't think will work," Jane said, after a thoughtful pause. She looked at me with alarmed dark eyes. "But what does that mean? What do we do?"

We walked on in silence. Hestia was still telling Annabeth pieces of trivia about various sculptures and buildings. The daughter of Athena was alternately nodding in interest and examining the leaflet. I stared at the back of her head with a sense of sinking worry.

Annabeth was not someone who changed her mind easily, but it didn't take much to see that she respected her mother's opinion. If I told her that Athena didn't seem to support what we were doing, she'd stop everything immediately.

But then, if Athena really _was_ against this mission, why didn't she say so? Olympians weren't exactly shrinking violets. I only had to look at every Greek legend _ever_ to see that the gods made their views known, without fail. If Athena hadn't told us to stop, it was no business of mine to do so.

I blinked, and realised that the other two had vanished around a corner.

"Come on," I told Jane, who was frowning darkly at a shrine across the street. "We'd better catch up."

We sped up, rounding the corner quickly and nearly running into Hestia and Annabeth, who'd stopped walking. I looked past them, and saw that we were standing outside a massive archway, in which there stood a huge, heavy wooden door.

"You guys don't do things _quietly_, do you?" Jane muttered, more to herself than anyone else. Hestia heard her, and glanced around.

"Everything that is great must be acknowledged," she told us, in a solemn tone, "and there are few things greater than this library."

I didn't know about the library, but its front door was pretty darn impressive. The archway was about fifteen feet high, and was comprised of three layers of interlocking stones. Each layer was different and as I looked closely, I realised that one layer was igneous, another was sedimentary, and the third was metamorphic. All three primary rock types were there, forming an imposingly solid structure.

The door, meanwhile, fit into the arch perfectly, and was hewn from some dark, powerful-looking wood. Countless symbols and letters were engraved upon its surface. Many were Greek, though not all. Some were simple inscriptions of single characters, while others were intricate, carefully carved images. Bronze hinges, glinting in the sunlight like metal insects, secured the door to the arch.

There was one thing, however, which was conspicuously missing.

"How the heck do we open it?" I asked confusedly.

The door bore neither handle nor knob by which to pull it open. It didn't even have a keyhole. Hell, if it wasn't for the hinges, I would have assumed that it was just a piece of decoratively carved wood.

Annabeth stepped towards it, tapping the brochure against her leg thoughtfully. Hestia said nothing, but simply watched with a knowing expression.

"I guess there's some magical way to open it," Jane said, sounding unimpressed. "What's wrong with a simple doorknob?"

Annabeth reached out towards one of the symbols on the door, but hesitated. She checked the leaflet again, carefully reading something on the back.

"It's a semiotic lock," she said, more to herself than us. "We open it by touching the right symbol. The only problem is, the symbol is different for each person."

"Huh?" Jane asked, glancing from Annabeth to Hestia with a comically puzzled expression.

Hestia took a step back, so that she was standing alongside Jane and me.

"It's not a matter of one symbol being the correct key," she explained, talking quietly. "The door opens only when you find the symbol that has the most meaning to you, personally. When you do so, the door's wards recognise that you are a person of thoughtfulness, and entry to the Library is permitted."

"A-ha!" Annabeth said triumphantly. More confidently than before, she reached out and tapped a small symbol which lay near the centre of the door.

The image, too small to see from where we stood, glowed gold for a second, shining encouragingly. Then, with a rumbling that almost sounded like an earthquake, the door began to swing inwards. The ground actually started to shake as it moved backwards, slowly opening a space by which to enter. Streams of golden light rippled down from the archway and across the symbols, in a mesmerising ethereal waterfall. The light dripped like water from symbol to symbol, illuminating each for an eye-blink long moment, before draining down and vanishing into the ground.

With a final, dramatic judder, the door swung to a halt. It was barely even halfway open, so we could not see into the library, but there was more than enough space for us to enter.

"I don't know," Jane said drily, breaking our awed silence. "I still think a doorknob would be better."


	10. Chapter Ten

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

* * *

><p><span><strong>Piece of Darkness III - Middlegame<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Ten<strong>

* * *

><p><em>"<em>_Priceless, Skulduggery. Beyond priceless. The secrets they held, the histories they contained."_

_"__I'll be happy to pay for any damage caused."_

_"__You cannot pay for priceless books! that's why they call them priceless!"_

–Derek Landy, 'Skulduggery Pleasant: The Faceless Ones'

* * *

><p>Hestia left us just before we entered the Library.<p>

"You don't need me beyond this point," she told us. "I will leave you to your task."

We each gave her our thanks. Hestia spoke briefly to Annabeth and Jane with a sort of neutral grace, but as she turned to me, her manner changed a little.

"I was very happy to meet you, Cyrus," she told me seriously. I met those flame-eyes, and tried to disguise my confusion. Hestia was showing me another side of her, now, but I didn't know why. She was talking in a much more personal way, as though I was someone who'd earned her respect.

(But I'd just met her?)

"It was an honour to meet you, He— Lady Hestia," I said, only barely remembering the etiquette of addressing gods. I paused, trying to think of something reasonable to say, and then simply added, "Thank you for your help."

I bowed my head, and when I looked up, the goddess was still looking at me. I was tempted to turn away out of politeness, but something told me to hold her gaze. The moment seemed to stretch, making it feel far longer than it was, as Hestia examined me. It was difficult to understand her expression, since she had no actual eyes to give away her thoughts, but I got the sense that she was searching for something.

Then, she turned away. I blinked at her back as she took a few steps away from us. Hestia paused only at the corner, looking around at us to say, simply, "Good luck."

Then, she was gone.

I glanced at Annabeth, hoping that she might have some explanation for Hestia's slightly odd behaviour, but the daughter of Athena was fully focussed on getting into the Library.

"Come on, guys," she said, moving forward and, without hesitation, stepping through the door.

I looked at Jane, who was staring down at her shoes.

"What is it?" I asked quietly.

She glanced up quickly, frowning.

"Oh, nothing," Jane muttered, shrugging. She stepped towards the door, but paused.

"It's just Hestia," she said, seemingly more to herself than to me. Her fingers brushed over the smooth, ornate wood of the dramatic library door. "I wonder why all the gods can't be like her."

Then, she stepped through, following Annabeth.

I didn't immediately follow them, but paused to take a breath. I turned slowly on the spot, taking in the fresh air, looking at the spectacle of chiselled grandeur which, to me, seemed to lessen rather than magnify the majesty of the gods. If they truly were so great and so powerful, I thought, why did they need to build so many monuments to themselves?

But as I turned back to the door, I realised that Jane was right: Hestia was different to the rest. She didn't need grandeur to make herself feel complete.

I couldn't help wondering, too, as I stepped through the door, why she'd felt the need to wish us luck. After all, it was only a trip to the library.

* * *

><p>"Holy. Crap," I said, very slowly.<p>

A mere trip to the library it was, but this wasn't exactly your typical mortal library.

There were a number of amazing things about Olympus Library, though some of them weren't too surprising, given the splendour we'd seen outside. There was the size, of course: the ceiling was at least as high as that of a cathedral, and even more ornate. It was engraved with spiralling designs and mosaics, which trailed towards and down the walls.

It was difficult to see much of those engravings, however, because of the bookshelves, which were almost as high as the ceiling. The tops of the towering shelves did not seem to actually touch the ceiling, but they were within a few inches of it.

Still, while this was impressive, it wasn't too surprising.

Light was provided by many, many floating candles and lanterns. It made me think of the Great Hall in _Harry Potter_, with a flickering light floating in mid-air, just above head-height, every few feet.

But I'd seen lights like this before, there'd been ones very similar in the throne room of Hades, Lord of the Dead.

So, the ceiling and the shelves were impressive but unsurprising, the light was your typical magical floating set-up, and the floor was just… a regular wooden floor. What made this place different to any other library?

Well, the stuff on the shelves might've helped.

I had only vaguely understood the things Athena had said about the power of the items held here. I'd thought she was just being overdramatic, as gods always are, or that she meant the _information_ contained in the Library's books and scrolls was where the power lay. Surely, I'd reasoned, the Library just contained a collection of ancient, fraying texts.

When I saw what the place _really_ held, I understood that Athena had not been exaggerating at _all_.

The shelves were packed with thousands upon thousands of items: ancient scrolls, great tomes, tiny pamphlets, sheafs of papyrus, loose folios, anything you could imagine. And every one of these things was not just one item, it was three, or four or more. Everything seemed to be partially formed from a sort of amorphous golden mist, which constantly contorted and shifted.

I looked at the item closest to me. Like the others, it was formed out of this golden fog, and its shape was endlessly shifting. One second it was a scroll wrapped onto a shining rod, the next it was a hardback volume with gilt edges, and then it was a long sheet of parchment folded up into a neat parcel, then it became a paperback book with a vague image shimmering on its cover, before once more becoming a scroll.

And every single artefact in the Library was doing this, incessantly shifting and switching, never one thing and always another.

"It's wonderful," murmured Annabeth, who stood a few steps down from me. She was transfixed, gazing around at the seemingly infinite knowledge with an expression of almost religious wonder.

"It's unbelievable," Jane whispered. She stood a step in front of me, and looked overwhelmed by the sheer scale of it all. For once, her expressive face bore no gesticulation, but was relaxed in speechless admiration.

Like any good library, the shelving was broken up into rows by small gaps. Each row was at a right angle to the door, and every shelf was carefully aligned, so that nothing broke the continuous flow of the shelving system.

We were standing at the top of a row. I glanced left and right. On either side, I could see only column upon column, stretching off into the dimmer parts of the library. I looked ahead of us: the shelves seemed to stretch on for miles. Small, person-sized gaps marked the end of bookcases, every couple hundred feet or so.

"What _is_ all this?" Jane said in wonder, taking a few steps down our row.

"Quite a lot," Annabeth said drily. She shook her head in astonishment, then added, "Anything that relates in any way to the gods is here. Anything that is of interest to them. Plenty more besides."

"It's all so organised, though," I said quietly, rubbing my forehead as I looked about. "How do they keep it so… _tidy_?"

"How else?" Annabeth said over her shoulder. "Magic."

I could sure buy that one.

"But why are the books and stuff like… like _that_?" Jane asked, pointing warily at an item near her that was currently in the form of a clipboard.

"I'm not exactly sure," Annabeth replied, tapping one foot. "It's to do with how everything here is actually in the form of pure knowledge."

Almost automatically, I put my hand into my pocket, feeling for the labradorite which Amichanos, spirit of knowledge, had given me.

"You mean these things aren't really books and scrolls? They just _look_ like they are?" Jane said, eyeing the daughter of Athena doubtfully.

"Yes," she replied, with more surety. She flipped to a page in the library brochure, and considered it for a moment, before continuing, "Each item here is actually a piece of knowledge in its purest form. That's why everything is always changing. Every item only forms into something definite when it's taken off the shelf."

I thought about the implications of that.

"Maybe that's why Athena told us not to touch anything," I said, folding my arms. "What if some of the ideas in here aren't _meant_ to be put into a definite form?"

"What do you mean?" Jane asked, turning around to face me.

"Well, imagine the plans for building a terrible weapon are in here somewhere," I explained, waving one hand at the library in general. "You wouldn't want to put _that_ into solid form, would you? So the same applies to other, more abstract ideas. Maybe some of the knowledge isn't just being stored here: it's being hidden, or contained. There could be information in here that's potentially very harmful to the gods."

Jane nodded slowly. "I guess."

Annabeth considered that for a moment, then nodded approvingly.

"You're probably right," she said, stuffing the leaflet back in her pocket. "Anyway. We'd better get moving."

She started walking, and Jane and I followed. We walked quickly, matching Annabeth's stride.

As we moved down the aisle, I glanced again at the shelves, wondering how anyone could actually identify any of those pieces of knowledge. None of them seemed to be labelled in any way, so each shelf of blurry golden items looked much the same as the next. That didn't seem a great way to run a huge repository of arcane knowledge.

Then I noticed something on the front of the shelves. Just below each item, in the place where you might normally see a sticker bearing an author's name, there was a few blurry letters engraved in the wood.

I slowed a little as I tried to read the markings. They looked like a sort of caption, but they were too blurry to decipher. I couldn't even tell what language they were in. It was as likely that they were English as it was that they were Oghma, for all I could see.

Still, such letters were there underneath each item, providing a label that _someone_ could presumably read.

"What is it?" a voice beside me murmured, making me start.

(I'm awfully sensitive when I'm in one of my thinking-reveries.)

I glanced around. I'd actually stopped walking without even noticing. Jane was standing next to me. I got the impression she'd gone on and come back. Annabeth was further on, still walking.

"Look at that," I told her, pointing at the shelf in front of me. "There's some kind of caption underneath all the things here."

She looked at them, her dark eyes narrowing as she tried to decipher the blurry engraving.

"I see," Jane murmured. She glanced from shelf to shelf. "And… wow. They're everywhere. That's helpful, right?"

"I guess," I said doubtfully. "But a caption isn't much use if we can't read it."

"True."

We started walking again, moving faster now to catch up with Annabeth. We continued to keep an eye on the shelves, trying to find labels that we could read. I started to notice that some of the engravings were less blurry than others. One or two I could very nearly decipher, but somehow they were always just out of reach.

"Oh, look!" Jane said suddenly, stopping to point excitedly at a higher shelf, about ten feet above head height. I squinted up at it. To my eyes, the engraved legends there were as blurry as all the rest.

"I don't see anything," I said slowly, looking back at Jane blankly.

Jane glanced at me, then the shelf, then me again, both frowning and smiling a little.

"I can read some of them," she said. "They're all things to do with Nyx. _The History Of Nyx, An Exploration Of Night, The Midnight Hour_…"

I raised my eyebrows. "Okay. That's strange. Are they in Ancient Greek?"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "They're all in English."

I literally and metaphorically scratched my head, and glanced up at Annabeth, who had paused up ahead.

"I don't know why that is," I said uncertainly. "It's odd. Um. Look, we'd better keep going. We'll probably figure it out."

We started off again, Jane a little reluctantly. I kept glancing at unclear captions, trying to read them, but nothing became sharp for me. Still, I had a feeling I would find a shelf, somewhere, with engravings that I could see. The interesting question was, what would those captions denote?

Jane walked along in deep consideration for a few moments. As we drew closer to Annabeth, though, she clapped her hands together suddenly.

"I know what it is!" she declared, with surety. "Remember what Athena told us, about always finding what you seek?"

"Yeah."

"The caption things must be a part of that," Jane said, her eyes wide with comprehension. She glanced around at the shelves for a moment, before adding, "You can only read them if they mean something to you. It makes it a lot simpler to find what you're looking for. You just need to look for the labels which you can read."

"_Ah_," I nodded, as I caught up with her thinking. "That makes a lot of sense."

And, I thought, it fitted in with my idea that some ideas were hidden here. The danger of accidentally uncovering a piece of dangerous information was greatly reduced if you could only identify things that were important to you or things you already knew about. It probably wouldn't work to stop the single-minded maniacs who knew exactly what kind of doomsday information they wanted, but it would certainly ensure that there was no accidental discoveries of said world-killing knowledge.

We finally caught up with Annabeth, who was standing in the middle of the aisle with her arms crossed and her head lowered in thought, facing the right-hand bookcases.

"What is it?" Jane asked, frowning.

Annabeth didn't say anything, but just nodded at the shelves that she was considering intently.

I looked at them properly, and saw that there were two of those man-sized openings right in front of us. It was a little odd - there was one opening in the shelves, then there was a three-foot-wide bookcase, then there was another gap, and then the shelving resumed.

"What's the problem?" I asked, frowning at Annabeth. As far as I could see, both openings led into the same aisle.

"Keep looking," Annabeth told me. "You'll see it."

Utterly puzzled now, I stepped through the first opening.

"Oh," I murmured, as I looked around me. The aisle beyond the gap was a lot narrower than I'd expected. I glanced to my left, but only saw shelves - there was no sign of the other entrance. I stepped back out, and went into the left-hand opening. Sure enough, I found myself in a different aisle. On both sides, there was only bookcases - again, no sign of the other entrance.

"We're getting deeper into the Library now," Annabeth said, as I stepped back out. "Finding our way won't be as easy."

"Yeah," said Jane, who'd just checked the right-hand gap. "You could be right there."

"So what do we do?" I asked Annabeth. This was really getting beyond my level of ingenuity. I just hoped the daughter of Athena could come up with the solution.

She didn't reply for a long moment, as she considered the situation. Annabeth tapped her foot as she thought, her eyes flicking back and forth, from one entrance to the other. She was frowning in concentration, but there was something else in her expression, too, something close to irritation.

"Okay. I see what we have to do," she said finally. Jane and I looked at her expectantly. The daughter of Athena muttered something under her breath, something that sounded suspiciously like, "This is insulting." Then she said:

"We need to— _I_ need to follow my gut instinct here. If I listen to the Library, it will guide me down the correct path."

Her tone was flat and unamused, as though she found this solution woefully offensive. It took me about two seconds to guess why. I didn't think a child of Athena was particularly fond of making decisions based on _feelings_. That sounded more like something one of those wild demigods like Percy or Nico would do.

"That's not very scientific, is it?" Jane said, obviously coming to the same conclusion as me. She looked at Annabeth with a slightly sympathetic air. "Using feelings to find information?"

"No," Annabeth said darkly, starting to scowl. "No doubt there's a lesson in there somewhere."

She sighed, and unfolded her arms. I could literally _see_ her relax out of her intellectual focus: her aura around her head stilled, and some of the aura-light flowed down toward the rest of her body. She stopped looking at the openings, but let her eyes drift upwards, as though she was unconcerned as to which way she went. She stood like that for a moment, in a listening pose, waiting. Then, after a moment, she turned, with an air of certainty, to the right-hand entrance.

"It's this one," Annabeth said, already regaining her mental concentration, her aura flowing back around her head.

"You sure?" I said automatically.

She nodded tersely, still clearly a little irritated. "Come on."

She took the lead, as we moved on.

As we walked down the next aisle, I began to wonder if it was possible to actually get _lost_ in here. If you didn't have a clue what you were looking for - or if you didn't understand how the place worked - would you just wander aimlessly, forever? With a chill of unease, it occurred to me that this could be a good place to imprison _people_ as well as ideas.

Suddenly, Annabeth stopped. In my thoughtful reverie, I nearly walked into her, but she didn't seem to notice

"_Di immortales_," she cursed, with feeling, turning around to face us. "Gods, I'm so _stupid_."

Jane and I just stared at her blankly. There's times when I really don't feel like saying "what" again.

"The door!" she exclaimed. "I forgot to close it!"

Jane and I glanced at each other, then back at Annabeth.

"That… can't be too important, can it?" Jane said carefully, as though to a crazy person.

"You don't understand," the daughter of Athena said, shaking her head vigorously. "My mother _specifically_ told me to close that door. She doesn't just give _unimportant_ instructions. I have to go back."

Jane started to speak, probably to try to dissuade Annabeth, but I broke in before she could try.

"Okay," I said, stepping to one side. "We'll keep going, and you can catch up with us later. It won't take that long, right? You already know the way."

I didn't see why it was so important for her to close the door, but I could see in Annabeth's sharp grey eyes that she was going be damned if she didn't close that door before she took another step into the Library. I'd heard enough stories from Percy and Nico to know that trying to change Annabeth's mind was like trying to halt an avalanche with a garden spade.

"You're right, Cyrus," Annabeth nodded, already pushing past us. "I'll be back as soon as I can, you two keep moving. I have to close that door!"

She took off at a jogging pace, and in no time at all, she was gone.

"That's just pointless," Jane muttered, looking bemused at Annabeth's doggedness. "What difference can it possibly make? The only people on Olympus are the gods, who probably won't even want to come in here."

I glanced back up the aisle, and shrugged. "I don't know. I guess it means something to Annabeth. We might as well keep going."

We started walking on, though Jane didn't seem satisfied. She shook her head as we moved on.

"What is it with people and the gods?" she said darkly. "Just because they're immortal beings doesn't mean we have to do everything they say. I think the myths make it pretty clear that they aren't really much wiser than us."

"I think it may have something to do with how they can, you know, incinerate people," I said diplomatically. I glanced up at the shelves: the engravings were starting to look just a little bit sharper. Maybe the Library knew I was looking for the ritual, and perhaps we were getting closer.

"Yeah, sure," Jane said, with a small laugh. "When was the last time Athena incinerated anybody? I bet she doesn't even remember how."

"You should tell her that."

We walked on in silence.


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

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><p><span><strong>Piece of Darkness III - Middlegame<strong>

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><p><strong>Chapter Eleven<strong>

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><p><em>"<em>_I should point out that visions of the apocalypse and prophecies of doom rarely turn out to be accurate. So far anyway."_

–Derek Landy, 'Skulduggery Pleasant: The Dying of the Light'

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><p>Jane's pointed lack of admiration for the gods made me think again of how different she'd seemed on her arrival at the Empire State Building, the day before last. She'd mostly gone back to her old self since then, but there was still something changed in her. There was more anger, more defiance in her eyes than I'd ever seen before. I wondered, walking through the Library of Olympus, what had caused such an abrupt change.<p>

Then I remembered that she'd mentioned visiting the Underworld. That wasn't something demigods just _did_, unless you were Nico di Angelo. The really strange thing, though, was that she was in one piece. Hades amazingly hadn't blasted her into a million wisps of ghost for having the impudence to enter his realm uninvited.

Then again, that was _assuming_ that he hadn't invited her.

I sighed inwardly. This was getting awfully complicated, awfully quickly.

As we made our way along, I tried to think of a way to broach the topic with Jane. I couldn't just go right out and ask her about the Underworld, or ask why she suddenly seemed to really dislike the gods. That would obviously just put her on the defensive. If I wanted to learn what was troubling her, I couldn't make her feel like she was being forced to talk.

"So how was autumn for you?" I asked, in a neutral tone.

"It was okay," she replied quietly. Her expression had been starting to relax after her outburst, but her eyes darkened again at my question.

"Only okay?" I asked, trying to sound merely vaguely interested.

"Yeah, well," Jane scowled, and started walking a little more quickly. I kept pace, and didn't say anything else, but went back to nonchalantly eyeing the shelves around us.

"I thought things would get easier," she said, after another hundred feet or so.

"What do you mean?"

"Life as a demigod," Jane muttered, shaking her head slightly. "I thought it would get easier with time, that it would all go into the background. I thought it would go away one day."

I didn't reply. For all my attempts at empathy, this wasn't really something I could understand, and there was no point pretending otherwise.

"Instead, being a half-blood just seems to be becoming my whole life, more and more," she went on, looking at me directly for the first time in a while. "That's not what I want."

I met her gaze, but there was something else there behind her eyes - the presence of untold truths. I got the feeling that she wasn't telling me the whole story. I didn't really know what to say to encourage her to open up, so I decided to take a chance.

In hindsight, that was a mistake.

"Is that," I asked, focussing on keeping my tone as level as possible, "why you went to the Underworld?"

Immediately, Jane's expression hardened. She looked away, her eyes flicking around, as though she was searching for an escape.

"I don't want to talk about that," she said, almost too quietly to hear. Her pace picked up a little.

"Jane—" I began, slightly apologetic.

"I said, I _don't_ _want_ to talk about it," Jane said abruptly, her voice rising sharply at the end of the sentence. I glanced at her: she wasn't looking at me, and her fists were tightly clenched. Her face was crumpled in an expression that showed pain, anger, and something else, something I couldn't quite understand.

Still, I could see that none of that emotion was really directed at me.

"Okay," I murmured, feeling absolutely terrible at being a thoughtful friend.

We walked on in a silence heavier than any which had fallen before. It seemed to me as though a space was opening up around Jane, a sort of invisible gap between her and everything else. I didn't know if it was a temporary bad mood, or something more permanent, but there was a feeling to it which made me think of the cold darkness that permeated the Land of the Dead.

But hey, it was probably just my morbidly overactive imagination.

It wasn't too long before we came to another choice of paths. This time, three openings were in the shelves before us, the aisles beyond each one looking exactly the same.

I glanced behind us, but unsurprisingly, Annabeth was nowhere to be seen. It was up to us to navigate for now. I narrowed my eyes, focussing on instinct, like what Annabeth had talked about. I didn't know what to expect, but I felt something almost immediately: a sort of tugging in my gut, pulling me towards the opening on the left. I didn't know _why_ that was the way to go, I just understood that that was the direction I needed to take, and any other would bring me to a dead end.

As I reached that conclusion, Jane said firmly, "I think it's this way."

To my surprise, she pointed towards the opening on the right.

"Um," I said, frowning. "No, I'm pretty sure it's this one." I pointed at the left one.

The two of us looked at each other in confusion, and said simultaneously, "I'm sure it's this one."

We paused, both of us confused, slightly amused and a little defensive.

I shook my head, looking back at the entrances. I felt immovably certain: the centre and right-hand openings were simply not the way to go. If I did not head down the left-hand path, I would be straying too far off-course. I felt it so fixedly that I knew there was no way I could be convinced to take the other path.

"I don't know," Jane murmured. Her expression was still tight, but her posture had relaxed a little. "Maybe we're both right? Maybe both ways lead to the ritual?"

"I guess so…" I said, scratching my head. "All roads lead to Rome, they say. "

We stood in contemplation for a moment more, both of us staring intently down the aisle which we felt was the right one, both of us ignoring the other ways. We didn't try to convince one another into changing our minds about which one was correct. I think we both felt our certainty so strongly that we knew any discussion was pointless. This was one of those moments of resolution that cannot be shaken.

"That would mean, then," Jane said finally, "that it doesn't matter which way we go. So I can go this way, you can go that way. We'll meet back up, right? Then we're both happy, with the same outcome. It's not like there's any monsters in here or anything."

"Right," I nodded. That made perfect sense to me, given the way the library was meant to work. It also meant we'd continue to progress, which was the most important thing. "Let's do it. See you on the other side."

"See you," Jane said, not quite meeting my gaze. Without looking back, she walked off into the right-hand aisle.

I headed down the left-hand one without hesitation, feeling more purposeful than I had since entering the library. I was on the right track, I just _knew_ it.

At first, the shelves in this aisle looked no different to the earlier ones. Very soon, though, I noticed a small alteration: the engraved captions started to become less blurry, and the items themselves began to change form less rapidly. Where each piece would previously change appearance every time my heart beat, now they changed only every few seconds.

This simply confirmed to me that I was going the right way. The Library, I felt, was beginning to let me into its secrets, as though I was approaching something it wanted me to learn. Any minute, surely, I would turn a corner and see the Ritual of the Pit sitting on a shelf in front of me.

As certain as I was about that, however, other doubts began to form in the back of my mind as I hurried along. Maybe I was asking Jane too much. Who was I to search into her private feelings and concerns, I reflected. I was her friend, but that didn't automatically mean I was her confidante. I was trying to help, but maybe I was only showing my usual lack of tact.

On the other hand, sometimes tact is worth sacrificing if it means reaching out to someone. After all, a lot of people (like me) don't like asking for help, even when they need it. It takes a disregard for conventions to get through that.

I guess that's the question. Do you spare a person's pride but make yourself feel bad for not taking an interest, or do you trample over their sensibilities to try to be helpful?

I sighed a little, and shook my head. Why did life always have to be so complicated?

I glanced ahead, and frowned. Much further up, the aisle was starting to look darker, as though it came to an end, or as though the candles overhead were running out. Despite my confidence, I began to feel uneasy, and I slowed my pace.

As I did so, I thought I heard a faint rustle behind me, like the movement of clothes. I span around immediately, one hand reaching down towards my knife at my belt. I looked around wildly, even checking overhead.

There was nothing to see, however. There was nothing around me but emotionless bookcases and enigmatic pieces of knowledge. I squinted, trying to see if there was someone way back down the aisle, but I could see nothing, not even a hint of movement. I shrugged, turned back around, and hurried on. It had probably just been my imagination.

I heard no more sounds, but another strange thing soon started to occur. The first time, I barely noticed it, only vaguely sensing a slight shift in the shelves around me, as though the items had changed more quickly than usual.

The second time, I caught it. In the blink of an eye, I moved forward down the aisle by about fifty feet, somehow completely skipping over the intervening space. I could measure the implausible jump by looking at the dimness up ahead, which had gotten a heck of a lot closer.

I paused, glancing behind me. It was hard to be certain, because one spot in this Library looked very much like any another spot hundreds of feet away, but it felt as though I was being moved forward, quite literally by magic.

I shook my head after staring around manically for a minute. Presumably it was just another one of the Library's bizarre tricks, and maybe I was only imagining things. I started walking again.

There was no imagining the third time. My surroundings actually _blurred_ for a moment, and suddenly I was mere feet away from that dimmer section of the aisle. I stopped again, starting to feel seriously confused. How could this be happening? I hadn't suddenly developed the ability to cut across space like an arrow, had I?

No, I thought, as I rubbed my eyes wearily. This was the Library's doing. It was shunting me towards something, like a strong wind forcing a wave towards the shoreline. I was getting close to something important. I moved on, approaching the darker area cautiously. I peered into it, trying to see what lay ahead.

Then, suddenly, the light shifted, as though the candles had flickered in a different direction. The dimness clarified into shapes, and I realised what was causing the patch of shadow.

I was actually standing near a _turn_ in the aisle, something I hadn't encountered before. The dimness was caused by a lack of light in the corner, making it look as though the shelves just ran out. As I drew nearer, it became obvious that the bookcases simply made a right-angle turn. Feeling oddly trepidatious, I turned the corner.

The Library hadn't made a turn just to be coy. The aisle ahead, at first glance, looked little different than the last one, but a closer examination showed that there was two main changes. First, the shelves were now fronted with clear glass doors, which glinted unobtrusively in the quiet candlelight.

The second difference was that not one of the items on the bookcases here was changing shape. All of them were in unshifting forms, mainly yellowing scrolls tied with dull red ribbons. The same sheen of gold light surrounded them all, but it did not move or transform.

I stepped forwards slowly, looking around with fascination. I felt a strange sensation, a sort of intense expectation. I looked at the engravings below the scrolls: I could so very _nearly_ read them. It was almost painful, with the tiny letters of the captions somehow just hovering out of the realm of interpretation.

I kept moving. I felt drawn forward, as though something on one of these shelves was exerting a magnetic pull on my very soul. I scanned the pieces of knowledge, searching without knowing what to look for.

Then, with a sense of chilling satisfaction that barely seemed to be a part of me, my eyes fell upon one scroll that glowed a little brighter than the rest. It was just the same as the items that surrounded it, no bigger, no thicker, except for the golden light which shrouded it.

I stepped towards this unique item, and then I saw the caption just below it, etched carefully in the shelf.

I could read it.

I could read it, and now I knew that it was the very thing I'd been searching for, without fully realising or understanding it. It was the one piece of knowledge in this Library which I truly sought, the artefact most personally important to me in the gods' entire collection.

_Prontos profiteia_.

I moved over to it tentatively, my fingers twitching, eager to grab it. I swung open the glass door, and very nearly reached up to pluck it right off the shelf, but Athena's warnings held me back. Instead I simply stood, staring at this little scroll, a piece of parchment which could hold secrets so crucial to my very existence.

It was unremarkable-looking, really, with no physical feature marking it out from the hundreds of other scrolls that filled the shelves in this aisle. It was old, but not necessarily ancient. I looked at the caption again. There was no doubt, it read _prontos profiteia_. This was _the_ prophecy, the one that Wilson had told me about, the one Hades had spoken of, the prophecy that was meant to foretell my fate.

I'd found it.

A surge of decisiveness swept through me. Never mind the Library's rules, I _knew_ it was right for me to open this scroll. Without any further hesitation, I reached up and took it from the shelf.

Nothing happened, which kind of surprised me. I'd really been expecting an alarm to sound, or the scroll to disintegrate, or for the floor to open up and swallow me. Not even the item's aura changed. It was awfully anticlimactic.

I lifted the thing up to eye level, and paused. This was it, all I had to do was open the scroll, but I was seized by a moment of reluctance. What if, by learning this prophecy, I changed my future? Maybe there was a reason why no-one had told me what this actually said. Perhaps there's some things which should only be learned by experience.

Then I shook myself. No. I was being _too_ careful. I couldn't spend my whole life asking for permission. If my fate had been laid down for me, I had the right to know what course it was meant to take.

My breath getting a little shaky, I slipped the ribbon off, and unfurled the scroll. It opened up quite easily, as though it had only been waiting to be let loose. I straightened it out slowly, not letting myself read the words inked onto the parchment until I had every character fully revealed.

Despite the fact that this was a Greek prophecy, the words appeared to be written in English. I could only suppose that this was some additional feature of the magic of the Library. There wasn't much written on the scroll, and indeed it wasn't that long: just big enough for a few lines. Finally, I took a deep breath, and read.

_Ancient foes will once more rise, but will once more fall,_

_For the strength of the West will outlast them all._

_Past battles will again be waged,_

_And again the gods will not be caged._

_Only when the shadows themselves rise and fight,_

_Will Olympus fall to a truly dark night._

_True power, the darkness will gain,_

_While the gods shall face eternal pain._

_But the one with the gift of unhindered sight,_

_Will hold the power to unveil the hidden light._

_And only he who stands alone in a crowd,_

_Can be the weaver of the shadows' shroud._

I lowered the piece of parchment, very slowly, trying to take in all the words at once.

So that was it. I could immediately see what the big deal was. The scope of this prophecy was huge. Nico, Percy and Annabeth had all told me about various prophecies they'd heard, and none of them, not even the Great Prophecies, were on the same level as this one. It was a master prophecy, a prediction that sat at the centre of all the others.

Distracted by my thoughts, I only vaguely felt a shift in the air behind me. I glanced over my shoulder absently, but there was nothing to see.

I looked at the scroll again. These words, they were so unremarkable, simple words written by hand in thick black ink. It was easy to suppose that they really were just words, but I could sense something else there, a ring of truth. It was hard to pinpoint. It was that air of certainty you feel when you hear something and _know_ that it's completely true. You don't always know exactly how or why, you just know that it _is_.

I read it again, feeling a little calmer. Now that I had finally read the damn thing, I felt a weight lifting from my shoulders. It didn't answer very many questions, but now I knew about as much as anyone else.

I heard another rustle, much closer this time, and a chill of unease stirred in my stomach. Feeling rather fed up with the antics of this Olympian crowd, I turned around, still clutching the parchment.

Maybe I'd used up my amazement quota for the day, because somehow, I wasn't overly surprised to see Jake Wilson standing just a few feet in front of me, holding his razor-sharp Stygian sword.

"Well, hi, Cyrus," he said, smiling cheerfully, as though we'd just bumped into each other at the mall. "I had a feeling I might see you here."


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.**

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><p><span><strong>Piece of Darkness III - Middlegame<strong>

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><p><strong>Chapter Twelve<strong>

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><p><em>"<em>_How long have I known him? Not really your best line of inquiry. We met twice, five minutes in total. I pulled a gun, he tried to blow me up. I felt we had a special something."_

–Sherlock, 'The Reichenbach Fall'

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><p>Some people might have felt afraid, or angry, but I just sighed.<p>

It's funny. I used to be scared of Wilson, but he really didn't frighten me anymore. It wasn't like I enjoyed his company or anything, but I preferred him to an _actual_ monster. He was an enemy, sure, but a familiar one, and I felt that I knew how to deal with him.

"How did you get in here?" I said neutrally, slipping the scroll into my left hand, and resting my right hand on my dagger handle.

Wilson laughed a little, and lowered his sword to one side. "You cut right to the chase, huh? Where's the formalities?"

"Hey, you're the one trespassing," I shrugged. "I suppose you're here for the ritual, right? It's not just me here, you know."

Wilson didn't reply to that, but glanced away from my gaze to look me up and down. It didn't take very long for his eyes to fix on the scroll.

"What about that?" he asked quietly, raising one eyebrow. "You find something that interests you?"

I frowned, trying to put on a poker face. It probably didn't make any difference if Wilson knew that I'd found the prophecy, but the less he knew, the better.

"Oh, it's nothing," I said, looking down at the parchment with a vague gaze, as though it was something hopelessly uninteresting. I scanned over the lines one last time, committing them to memory, before rolling the scroll back up. All the while, Wilson stood watching me, with a worryingly knowing air.

As I started to fumble the ribbon back onto the rolled-up parchment, the son of Erebus said, in a more serious tone, "That's the prophecy, isn't it?"

I _tried_ not to react, I really did, but I couldn't help it. I froze, and looked up at Wilson, very slowly. He looked back at me emotionlessly.

"I don't know what you mean," I said, my voice icy, which was kind of a dead giveaway, let's face it.

"Oh, come on, Cyrus," Wilson said. He sheathed his sword, and stepped towards me. I would've stepped backwards, but then my head would have ungracefully collide with the bookcase's glass door. "As far as I know, the only thing in this library which could be of any importance to you is the _prontos profiteia_, and I know how this place works. It takes you to what you need."

Taking me by surprise, Wilson reached out and just plucked the scroll from my loose grip. He slipped the ribbon back off it and unrolled the parchment. As he examined the prophecy, I looked at him.

It was only a few months since I'd last seen the son of Erebus, though it felt like a lot longer. He didn't seem much different, but one thing was changed: his aura had grown stronger and more intense than ever before. It had always been very obviously powerful, but now it had become something that went beyond the auras of any half-blood I'd seen. I had to focus to push it away, before I got sucked in by its deep intensity.

I noticed something strange, though, something that had occurred to me the last time I'd seen him, but which I'd forgotten about. Only now did I understand this odd sensation.

Every time I saw Wilson, he seemed much more familiar to me, but in an illogical way. I'd only met him a handful of times, but each time we met, I felt like I was re-encountering someone who I knew better than anyone else in the world.

Wilson glanced up, catching me staring.

"I know, I'm wolfishly handsome," he smiled offhandedly. "Well, Cyrus, I have to congratulate you."

I was used to Wilson saying the most random things, but this did surprise me. "Huh?"

"I have to congratulate you," he repeated, holding up the prophecy with an impressed air. "You've managed, probably without even intending it, to find the original copy of the _prontos profiteia_."

"Uh. Okay," I said, with wisdom, giving him my best blank stare. "Great."

"It _is_ great," Wilson said, shaking his head in amazement. "This thing is so old, I thought it had been destroyed."

He continued to examine the scroll with interest, turning it around and around. I gave him another moment to play his game, for whatever good it did him, and then I said flatly, "What are you doing here?"

He didn't reply at first, but slowly rolled up the scroll and put the ribbon back on. He held it in his right hand, tapping it against his left like a baton, and said, "Do you know how old this thing is?"

"What are you doing here?" I repeated flatly.

"This prophecy was given way back when Olympus came to America," Wilson went on, somehow managing to ignore me whilst looking at me. "Every time the gods move home, a new prophecy is given which forecasts their fate in the new land."

"What are you doing in the Library?" I said, my tone growing colder. I didn't want to hear his patter, I'd had plenty of it already. "How did you get in?"

Wilson started to ramble on, then paused, and sighed. He looked away from me, and started scanning the shelves behind me for something.

"How long did it take her?" he murmured, as he did so.

"Huh?"

"How long did it take Annabeth to remember to go back and close the door?" he elaborated, still looking from shelf to shelf.

"Oh," I said. A dim sense of comprehension shifted in the back of my mind. "I don't know. About ten minutes or so. Maybe a bit more."

"That was lucky," Wilson muttered to himself. He stepped past me, to stand right in front of the bookcases

I frowned at his profile. Usually I could keep up with his ramblings, but for once he wasn't making any sense at all. What difference did it make to him whether the door was open or not? I'd seen the entrance to the Library. We'd more or less just walked in. Presumably he'd done the same—

Then it hit me.

Annabeth had received _clearance_ from the Olympians to enter the Library. Maybe that meant more than I'd realised.

"Oh," I said quietly.

Wilson found what he was looking for: the gap in the shelf where the scroll belonged. He opened the glass door, replaced the scroll gently, then turned around.

"Oh," he nodded, grinning. "People can't just walk into_ Olympus Library_, Cyrus. If they could, the ritual wouldn't be an issue. No, to get in here without permission, someone else has to open the door first. Normally that's not remotely possible, but with a little manoeuvring…"

Wilson stopped talking abruptly, as though he'd said too much, and glanced at his watch. He raised his eyebrows, seemingly surprised at the time, and looked up at me with a more purposeful expression than before. His right hand moved towards his sword.

Obviously, he was on a schedule.

"Now, let's get this over with," he said briskly. "You're right, I'm here to take the ritual book, but I can't find my way to it. We're going to have to come to an agreement. You've already found your prophecy. You can lead me to what I want."

Immediately, I reached for my dagger. Wilson was quicker, and had his sword out in the blink of an eye. He didn't raise it above waist height, but his posture shifted, so that he was ready to attack or defend at any moment.

"Look," Wilson said flatly, looking at me levelly. "Let's not do this. You lead me to the ritual, I take it, I leave. I don't kill you, you don't embarrass yourself trying to kill me, and we're all happy. Except for the gods, but that's kind of the idea."

I ignored his jibe, knowing that he was only trying to make me mad. I thought about my options, keeping my hand on my dagger. The reality was that I couldn't fight him off on my own. Close-quarters combat isn't exactly my strength, and I had a feeling that the great amount of shadows around us would only play to Wilson's advantage. I could try to run for it, but I'd had enough experience of running away from shady mythological characters to know that it didn't usually work out.

So I had to lead Wilson _somewhere_ - but he obviously wasn't able to find his way to the ritual on his own. That's why he'd come after me, to make me be his guide. That gave me a little leverage, because I could lead him in completely the wrong direction and he wouldn't even know it. I didn't get how he'd managed to overlook that, but then everyone misses something.

The thing was, though, it was no use leading him off to a random part of the Library. I needed to incapacitate him, somehow, but I couldn't do it alone.

Finally, I knew what to do.

"Fine," I said, dropping my hand to my side. "Let's go find an apocalyptic magic rite."

Wilson nodded, and sheathed his sword. "Thank you for your cooperation," he said sardonically.

I couldn't take him on my own - but a highly capable and experienced demigod could. I had to lead the son of Erebus to Annabeth, and hope that she hadn't already found the ritual.

Then we really _would_ be in a pickle.

Focussing my mind on the daughter of Athena, I looked up and down the aisle, searching for that inner pull, that navigational instinct. I let the Library in. The spirit of the place was all around me, and it reminded strongly me of Amichanos, the reassuring spirit of knowledge who was exiled in the Fields of Silence. I made a request in my mind, asking for directions, as it were.

It didn't take long for a sense of direction to ease into me, a gentle suggestion of the correct path. I followed it, turning to look down this aisle of scrolls.

As I did so, I wondered how on earth I'd ended up in the middle of an ancient, legendary library, pretending to guide the megalomaniacal offspring of an ancient shadow god to an arcane rite which could summon one of the most dangerous primordial beings in existence.

I guess it beats watching TV.

We set off, with Wilson walking half a pace behind me, to my right.

"I've always liked libraries," he said cheerfully, after a moment or two of heavy silence.

"Really?" I muttered darkly, not looking around at him. "I gotta say, I thought you'd be more the book-burning sort."

"What? Why?" Wilson said, sounding a little hurt. "Just because I hate the gods doesn't mean I hate everything, I mean, gosh."

The aisle began to widen out a little. The Library seemed to be getting increasingly varied as we drew nearer to - what? Its centre? There was room enough now for three people to walk alongside each other. Wilson saw this too, and moved so that he was walking next to me - but he kept far enough away so that he wasn't really by my side.

"It's amazing, this place, it really is," he murmured appreciatively.

I was reluctant to get into conversation with him, but I couldn't help myself. "If you hate the gods, why wouldn't you hate this place, too? This is just another example of their power."

Wilson looked back at me, his eyebrows raised.

"I'm not totally unreasonable, Cyrus," he said, putting his hands in his pockets as he walked. "Sure, I hate the gods, I completely despise their existence, but that doesn't meant I have to hate everything related to them. Most people hate the Nazis, but that doesn't stop them driving Volkswagen Beetles, does it?"

I had to admit, that made sense - it was exactly the kind of chillingly pragmatic thinking that I was used to hearing from Wilson.

A few minutes and many yards later, Wilson spoke again, this time in a pensive tone, as though he'd been thinking this one through.

"I don't do things for no reason," he said quietly. "I hate the gods because they killed my mother, and because of that, I will bring them down. I want to convince the Lightbringer to join my side, and so I try to do so. I don't hate things for no reason, though, and I don't kill people or attack things just for the sake of it. Those really _are_ the actions of a madman."

The items on the shelves were starting to change again: literally, they were once more changing from form to form, slowly but consistently. I couldn't read any of the captions here, but I felt certain, in my very gut, that we were drawing closer to Annabeth.

"Lightbringer," I said ponderously, brushing my hair back from my forehead. "I understand that title better now. You get it from the prophecy, don't you? _'The power to unleash the hidden light'. _I'm the one with the unhindered sight, so I guess I'm the one who can unleash this light, whatever that means. Maybe it's a super-strong light bulb or something. The Light Bulb of Destiny."

"It probably means the salvation of the gods," Wilson said offhandedly. "That kind of imagery usually does. The Olympians are always so self-righteous… Still, you won't get to do it. You hold the power, right, but that doesn't guarantee that it'll be fulfilled."

"What? Why?" I said, looking at him sharply.

"Can't tell you that," he replied easily, meeting my gaze for a moment. "You'll see why eventually. Things are going to change, very soon, and you won't be able to unleash any kind of light. Sorry, man."

We walked on in grim silence.

A lot of thoughts were crowding in my mind, each one clamouring to be considered, but I focussed as much as possible on reaching Annabeth. I realised where I'd gone wrong earlier: I'd stopped focussing on the ritual, so the Library had instead brought me to the prophecy. I sure wasn't complaining about _that_ bit of bad navigation, but I couldn't afford for it to happen again.

In the back of my mind, I wondered what else I would find if I let the Library lead me. Would it take me to something as apparently important as the prophecy, or would it show me information that I couldn't even imagine? Then again, if this place only held stuff that was related to the gods, there couldn't be all that much in here that was important for me to know.

In the time it takes to blink, the aisle suddenly widened out, and we found ourselves standing at the edge of a much larger circular area. Almost instinctively, I stepped back, though this was helped along by Wilson tugging me by the arm. At first I didn't realise why he was making me pull back, but then I saw her.

Standing at one of the bookcases on the right-hand side of this new area was none other than Annabeth Chase.

Wilson gave me a sharp look, and pressed a finger to his lips. Then he made a quick gesture with his left hand, and I felt a shift in the air around us. His aura rippled briefly, and a wafer-thin covering of darkness settled over us like a cloak of invisibility. We stood there, hidden from view.

I looked at what lay ahead. The circle of bookcases had a diameter of about twenty feet. The shelves formed the sides, with a few seats and tables scattered in the open area. Opposite to where Wilson and I stood, there was a narrow aisle leading out of the circle.

The shelves here were as tall as anywhere else in the Library, but because there was more space in front of them, it was easier to appreciate their height. It was clearer, too, just how many items were held on each shelf, never mind each bookcase. It was brighter here: there was more candles than in the regular part of the Library, and they burned more intensely, almost abnormally so.

I looked again at Annabeth, who hadn't noticed us, and I finally realised why Wilson was keeping us so quiet.

The daughter of Athena was holding a great glowing tome, its corners set with sparking bronze. It was one of the biggest books I'd ever seen, and the covers were made of some kind of thin wood. I was too far away to read the flowing script inscribed on the front, but the air of power surrounding the item made me feel sure that Annabeth had found the text containing the Ritual of the Pit.

I nearly punched Wilson out of sheer annoyance. So much for my genius plan.

"That's it, then," the son of Erebus said in the lowest possible undertone. "You obviously know your way around this place, Cyrus."

I was tempted to tell him that I hadn't been planning on leading him to the ritual at all, but I managed to keep my mouth shut. I was also tempted to shout out and alert Annabeth, but I was painfully aware of Wilson's hand resting on his sword's grip.

"The only problem, now," Wilson murmured to himself, "is how to actually take it."

I frowned, and gave him a sidelong glance. What was he talking about? He just had to march over and snatch it from Annabeth, right? Surely that wasn't too much for him.

Then I realised. Annabeth was older, more experienced and far more legendary than Wilson. Not even him, with his Olympus-killing notions, wanted to take her head-on in a fight.

"I can't use my powers too much," he went on, as if to explain why he didn't feel capable of taking down Annabeth. "It would only draw the gods' attention, but how…"

He fell silent, lost in his own thoughts.

As he considered the situation, I tried to plot some way to let Annabeth know that we were here. For once, I genuinely regretted not having any half-blood powers. Sometimes being only a mortal with hyperactive vision can be pretty useless. At least if I were the son of a deity I'd have a few more _options_.

Annabeth was leafing through the pages of the book now, searching for something, probably the instructions for the ritual. I just couldn't think of any subtle way to alert her. Pretty much the only option I had was to run into the open area yelling and looking panicked (which admittedly wouldn't be too difficult). The only slight problem with that idea was that it might encourage Wilson to stick me in the back with his sword. This normally wouldn't be a problem, since celestial bronze can't hurt me, but his blade was made from Stygian iron, which is harmful to pretty much everything.

Then again, given his reluctance to fight Annabeth, it seemed more likely that if I did go out there, Wilson would just run for it.

I made my decision. I was just about to throw myself desperately into Annabeth's field of vision when I noticed movement in the aisle directly across from us. Wilson saw it too, and glanced at me suspiciously, before looking back at it. Someone was approaching the circular area, moving slowly but steadily. The light was dimmer in the opposite aisle, so at first I couldn't see who it was. But as they drew nearer, the bright light of the circle spilled onto their face.

_Faces._

I frowned, trying to understand what I was seeing. Surely my eyes were deceiving me, that couldn't be—

I looked away, rubbed my eyes, and looked back, but there was no doubt about it. Coming slowly down through the opposite aisle was none other than Jane Welles and the Rhean high priest, Xavier Graecus.


End file.
